The Dale Jr. Download - 329 - Dr. Jerry Punch: Saving Lives

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

The life-saving trauma doctor and legendary NASCAR and college football TV broadcaster, Dr. Jerry Punch, joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. for a dive into Dr. Punch’s storied medical and commentating career.From his days growing up in Newton, N.C., in the shadows of Hickory Speedway, Dr. Punch’s racing roots run deep. He shares about his childhood when he helped legendary drivers work on their cars and also getting behind the wheel himself.After playing football at NC State under coach Lou Holtz, Dr. Punch pursued medical school. He tells Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis what made him want to become a doctor and how he spent his mental health days away from school and at the race track.Ned Jarrett was like a second father to him and helped jumpstart his broadcasting career. Find out how Barney Hall missing an announcing gig at Hickory Speedway led to Dr. Punch’s first opportunity behind the microphone. Plus, learn about legendary Charlotte Motor Speedway PA announcer Bill Connell.How did Dr. Punch balance medical school and a broadcasting career? He explains how one night his two careers intersected at Hickory Speedway when the world lost one of his heroes, Bobby Isaac. Then you won’t believe what almost happened next.Dr. Punch is credited with saving the lives of drivers involved in accidents on the race track. He shares intense details of an accident involving Don Marmor in an ARCA race at Atlanta. Later, he walks us through the scary ordeal when Rusty Wallace flipped at Bristol Motor Speedway. Find out how Dale Earnhardt helped the situation and what he said to Dr. Punch afterward.The Intimidator and Dr. Punch were close friends. However, their friendship didn’t necessarily start out on the best terms. Hear how Jerry tried to confront Dale Sr. one day at Martinsville.Dr. Punch shares incredible stories of the side of Dale Earnhardt many people never saw. Hear how he offered to help Dr. Punch’s pregnant wife on a snowy North Carolina night. Also, a story not many know about the Intimidator making a dying boy’s wish come true.After the Talladega accident that broke Dale Sr.’s collarbone, he called Jerry. Hear how the doctor's office visit went, details about the weekend he tried to race at Indianapolis, and the bone-chilling story about qualifying at Watkins Glen.As Dale Jr. clinched his 1998 Xfinity Series championship, Dale Sr. joined Dr. Punch in the booth. Hear about the emotional moment for the proud dad. Then hear who was terrible at karaoke during the after-party that Dale Jr. doesn’t remember. Dr. Punch was integral to the filming of Days of Thunder. He talks about the day Tom Cruise and Robert Towne shadowed him at Watkins Glen. Plus, how his input helped cast Nicole Kidman and shaped the medical scenes of the movie. Hear insight about the relationship Bill France Jr. had with Dale Sr. Dr. Punch remembers a special moment they shared after the 2000 Daytona IROC race and the time Dale Sr. called France during an interview. Memories from The Intimidator’s 2000 Talladega win are told as Dr. Punch broadcasted the race. He shares his perspective from the booth and what Benny Parsons said about the race while leaving the track. After Noah Gragson's late-race incident at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Dale Jr. puts his co-team owner hat on and addresses the situation.Plus, find out why Dale’s heart hurt hearing Steve Letarte stepped back into the crew chief role for one race. Hear why it brings back memories of when Dale found out Letarte was leaving the No. 88 team, which he shares openly in this therapy session with co-host Mike Davis.  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. The Dale Jr. Download. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. My co-host, Mike Davis, is here. How you doing, Mike? I'm doing well. How you doing it? Awesome. Shultz and Leah are over there in the booth. Let me help on us out with the show today.

We've got our guest, Dr. Jerry Punch. So Dr. Jerry Punch, obviously, he's a doctor. But we're going to talk to him about this. He worked for ESPN, a lot of other different people throughout the the you know throughout his career uh as a as a pit road analyst a pit road reporter just had a lot of different roles in the sport on the broadcast side right so uh he's got stories you know he's he's had some pretty incredible experiences kind of behind the curtain if you will and he's going to share a lot of that with us he's told me for years that he had a lot of things that he wanted to talk

about we're going to get him on the show uh to talk about some of that stuff um so anyways before before I guess we get to our guest with Dr. Jerry Punch, did you have a good weekend? Oh, had a great weekend. Weather was nice. I thought it was going to rain. You know, watched a little bit of racing. Yeah. Accinity race was amazing. Shultz. And crazy. Is there anything that we need to talk about? Do you think that people are going to expect us to talk about on the open today? I put Steve LaTart was the crew chief again. I think people watched you. Yeah. I'm sure they, I think they also want to hear from us about Noah. But yeah. So you guys watch all that right yeah yeah saw it all go down tough stuff yeah um i've watched this uh you know

kind of from a distance and uh you know don't really feel like i need to jump into the middle of this this is kind of something noah is working through himself but uh i don't know you know i have a struggle a little bit with with uh i called noa yesterday and we tried i tried to get a hold of him and he called me back later but we couldn't we kind of we kind of played phone tag a little bit but haven't really been able to talk, but I just kind of wanted to share with him. You know, I'm not into telling Noah how to act or what to do or what I think is right or wrong. And I can understand absolutely heat of the moment, get out of the car, being frustrated, say something about another driver. All that stuff is kind of fair game.

You know, once you're at the racetrack and you get interviewed, I can understand how frustrated. He must have been. But I kind of thought maybe I might share with Noah a little bit about what I know of David Star and what I know of Carl Lone, you know, the owner of the car, the 13 car. And, man, they were running 12. Lead lap. Pretty good. Should we say what happened, actually, before we get into this part? Yeah, go ahead, Mike.

I'm just saying. No, go ahead. Noah Gragson, our driver was leading the race, had him covered all day, didn't he? He was fast. Just super fast. You know, he's teeing it up as we're going into this event. Like, man, this is my thing. I came right to run the fence.

I'm on this. His attitude and his approach was to go attack, and attack he did, and he was seizing the race, you know, season the moment. How many laps were left when, you know, a car in front of him who he was about to put a lap down. So he was on the lead lap. David Starr, veteran driver, been around a long time. But in one of the, you know, lesser-funded cars,

cut a tire apparently and man Noah just drove right into the back of him right there against the wall killed our day lost the race obviously and then I guess Noah said some things after the race

just out of frustration and anger and probably all kinds of things and then David Starr or Carl Long which one somebody came back with a statement later and they're saying look Carl. Carl did I think the issue really isn't what he's Noah said after the race

right he's kind of continued to peck at this on social media for the last couple of days. Okay. And so, you know, I kind of think it's best to let a driver kind of work that out, you know, and go through that experience, right? And I have a feeling, and I hate to even broach the subject on the podcast because I kind of wanted to just play itself out. because I have this feeling knowing Noah the way I do that he's going to

understand he's going to sort of eventually through all this back and forth and the response from his from from from his posts and so forth on social media that he's going to realize who Carl is or what Carl's about and what Carl's done and and David or so forth and have have some sort of a meeting in the middle maybe a bit of a better appreciation I guess of what those guys were out there trying to do in their own race, running their own race. So I was kind of hoping to let that work itself out and see what happened and see if Noah, see what Noah continues, you know, continues to sort of figure this out. It's interesting.

You don't want to be a helicopter owner. You always talk about helicopter parents getting involved in their kids' battles, you know, fighting it for them and the detriment that ultimately comes out of that long term, you know, the kids don't, they grow up to be adults that don't know how to, you know, handle. I can't. A crisis. Yeah. I'm not going to sit here on the podcast and tell you what I think is right or wrong. I haven't had a chance to talk to Noah about that yet. And I don't think that's fair to sit here and tell you everything I think about it without having to say that to the man himself.

That's fair. But I think it is interesting to or best maybe to let this continue or not continue. I don't know if they're, you know, they're going to, you know, I don't know how far this is going to go or whatever. But I feel like in the end, the result will be a little, Noah's going to. going to have a little better understanding of kind of what a team like that is kind of out there trying to accomplish and do, right? And man, I didn't even, I didn't even know they were running so well. I have a little bit of a soft spot in my heart for Carl. I went to North Wilkesboro in the 90s. I wasn't racing yet. I think it was 92 or 93. I wasn't racing late models yet.

They had a late model stock race on the day before. And even at that young age, I kind of realized what a massive stage that must have been for these late model stock car drivers. This is late model stock car, something I wanted to do. And something I felt like I was really close to accomplishing, you know, getting into something like that. And there was this car out there. It was red and green and yellow Romeo guest sponsorship, and it was Carl running second. He ran second the whole race. I don't know why.

I guess it was the colors of the car or something, but it stood out to me. And then I started seeing Carl racing other races in the late models. And then he moved on up. And he's, you know, we know Carl. As we know Carl now, we know him from his Xfinity racing, flipping down the backstretch, it rocking him. And just, you know, kind of this hard luck guy is just trying to make it.

And the big penalty he had for the motor issue at Charlotte years ago. they sort of made an example out of him. I mean, yeah, like I don't even, we should dive into that somewhere on this podcast one day about what happened there because there's more to that story as to why you'd ban, you'd penalize a guy like that, right, like that, you know can't handle that type of a penalty. But yeah, it set Carl back. But anyhow, he ends up working his way back into the sport. So I know Carl that way. I also became a really big fan of Timmy Hill for whatever reason. other than Timmy would come drive Carl's car.

I'd stand on pit road with my car next to them before qualifying or something like that. And Timmy would be smiling no matter what. He knows he's got maybe not one of the best cars out there, maybe one of the worst cars out there for that particular race, but would be so happy that he was there. And I've watched Timmy, you know, through that relationship with Carl, create his own truck team and, you know,

now they've actually taken Carl's program and made it somewhat competitive. I mean, again, running out there in the top, in the lead lap at the end of this race, 12th place. They've had some good runs with Timmy at Bristol and other places. So I kind of have had my ear to the ground with that program for a really long time because of the connection with Carl and just knowing him since the early 90s and watching him. And I guess I wish Noah knew all of that, and I think he might have a different sort of approach to this whole thing. but Noah doesn't know all that history, right?

Well, I also think that Noah is probably just acting or reacting to the incident, which I think he's well within his right to be angry and to say, I don't know that I would have done anything different. Whatever Noah said, I did not take it, it's certainly after the race, it's personal. Yeah. Because he wouldn't know all the backstory. No. I do think, having said that, I always have this uneasy feeling when some of the

better funded race teams talk down to the lesser funded race teams. Like, it just feels icky a little bit to me. Yeah. Because we just know that those guys, man, they are living a completely different lifestyle. They are something that you have to be able to appreciate because that is pure passion. And Carl Long, I love that guy. I've gotten to know him over the years. Dude, you know, walking through the garage, always got a smile on his face,

stains all over his shirt, you know, just a, just a, just a, blue-collar worker. I don't know. I just think Noah saying what he said was purely from the racing incident, which is fine. I mean, listen, he got, he should have won the race. That would have been heartbreaking. So I give him a pass on that. And I also think that the, I don't know, is it, is it okay to like everybody in this

story and not have a problem with anybody? I think it is. Is that possible? I think it is. And I think it's okay to hope that there's a, there's some understanding between the at some point, you know, as they go, as this process, as they go through this process, maybe Noah learns a little bit about them and they learn a little bit about Noah to better understand each other, you know, and typically that's how it happens.

You, you know, you go to the racetrack and you get in a disagreement with some matter, fight with somebody, and it may take, it may be a couple days, it may be a couple years, but you end up, you know, becoming somewhat agreeable. Right. And by the way, when you react, when I'm saying reacting to a racing situation, what I mean is you can just remove all logic out of it. I mean, you don't have to sit there and go cross-examine everything because when you've just got out of a race car

and when you're still reacting, and Noah is so emotional, look, we give you grace because you're not going to act necessarily reasonably or you're not going to factor in everyone's backstories because you're just pissed that they just wrecked you and you didn't win the race. And that's okay. That when you react, like you guys, when y'all would get out of a race car, you know, you might cause a big wreck at Talladega or something and they go, Dale Jr., what happened?

Well, you don't even know. You don't even know. At the time, Noah didn't know the guy cut a tire. There's a part of me that doesn't want to restrain Noah at all because his approach right now is how he needs. This is he will, me and him talk last year. And, you know, we had the incident at Texas with the 18 car, the monster car, he wrecked Riley early in the race. And me and Noah sat down. And, you know, when that happened, everybody.

was like, oh, Noah's wild, he's rough, he's hitting everybody, you know, he's crazy. So me and Noah sat down and I said, hey, I said, you know, you're going to need to be this aggressive in the chase. I said, why don't we not, you know, do this for a while? Let's go through the summer without running into people and spinning people out because we're going to need to probably do that in the chase. We might have to move somebody out of the way. And, you know, let's just, you know, not pile up, not just let the world pile on top

of us, all this bad publicity and pressure. creating a lot of unnecessary attention and just, you know, put it in your pocket and hold it. And so with that said, I think that it's not his style. And he felt, I think he felt, you know, just judging by his comments. And, you know, when the chase started, he seemed to have this attitude of, I'm going to go back to doing what I do, racing how I want to race and how I think I need to race to do well. I'm not doing, you know, as well as I want to do. and I think I'm not approaching this the way I should or want to.

You know, so he went into the race at Homestead. You know, I watch his social media. I see him on there, you know, pumping himself up and trying to get people to believe in him. And I kind of don't want to affect that, you know, his process or whatever it is he needs to do to stay fired up and up on the wheel. But I'm hoping that, you know, through this experience somehow or another, he can kind of get some appreciation for Carl and David. and not just what they're trying to do out there on the racetrack today, but kind of who they were, who they've been. You know, the guys deserve a little respect.

And, you know, we know David, too might through some other things we do off the racetrack. So, but I'm watching. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. I still plan to talk to Noah and just get his opinion on where things are and how he plans to move forward, you know. I like this approach you're taking. Like, look, you know, you don't need to sit there and be, you know, inject yourself into the story. That's not what we're going to do.

I don't think that's good. So anyhow, and yeah, so LaTartre, crew chief, yeah, can I be honest? This is going to, okay. Well, maybe this time. All right. I got to be honest, man. And this is just a personal talk. Maybe I should just have this talk with Mike.

Okay, nobody else is listening. Mike is a lot of times Mike is my therapist. Okay, I'll come to Mike and I'll go, hey, Mike, I feel this way. Should I feel this way? Right, turn, dim the lights and just talk to me, Dale. Man, when I saw the news that LaTartre was going to crew chief this car, my heart hurt. Well, Dale, you have to search yourself and ask, why is that? Come on, man.

Why is that? I'm having this conversation. All right, don't make a joke of this. So. Why did your heart hurt? All right, here's my real reaction. Why? All right.

It took me back to, I think it was 14. Didn't we learn in the middle of the year? Oh, yeah. Right? Steve was leaving. So, all right, let's go back. All right. I'm in my, I get to the racetrack at Charlotte.

I'm assuming this was in May, sometime around the May race. And I get to my bus and getting ready to go to the hauler and practice, right? We're in the middle of a pretty awesome year. We won Daytona 500. Things are going good. Are you sure we found out

in the middle of the last year or wasn't 13? Because I feel like we might have went into... I don't remember. I just... There was a lot of racing left. But we were just coming off something very successful. Right. I mean, we're like...

14 was a great year. We're at the top. Like, we're back, baby. We had a great year. Anyways, we're not at the top. We're doing well. We're near the top. We were feeling good.

We're sharing the top. You'd want a Daytona 500. I know it was after that. So on January 9th, 2014, it was announced Lattart would be leaving Hendrik Motorsports after the 2014 season. So you probably found out. In 13. Yeah.

So we're in the, okay, so in 2000. I don't remember it that way. So 2013, we're at Charlotte. Maybe it was the second Charlotte race late in the year. I think 13 wasn't too bad. We're progressing, getting better. Anyhow, I'm in my bus getting ready. I just got to the track.

I'm getting ready to go in. And I don't know how I found out, but I got a, maybe it was a phone call or something. but I'm standing there and I learned that LaTartre's going to take a job for NBC in 2015. You learned from him? No. So I knew that NBC was coming in, right? They got a deal. They're coming in to, they're going to start a new team.

I called NBC, one of the execs there, and I said, y'all know who y'all need to hire for this is Dale Jarrett. I said, Dale Jarrett's one of the best and he's going to be available, I believe. I think y'all should put Dale Jarrett in there. Because ESPN was leaving the sport. Yeah. That's what I have. I'm talking. I think I'm talking to this guy while he knows possibly that they're going to hire Steve.

I don't know. But I'm sitting there on the phone trying to give my opinion on who I think should be in the next booth for NBC. And they hired Steve right out from under me. So basically, I felt like that NBC, Steve, everybody went and did all this and didn't even decide to tell me or didn't even decide to share, hey, man, we would like to think, we would like to do. Me and Steve were, we're this new, we'd only been together a couple years. And we're this great new thing. We got together and it was both our last chances. We're rejuvenating our careers.

We got the rest of our lives to just go do the best we can do. Like we're on this new path, right? Anyhow, I'm getting a little bit in the weeds, but it broke my heart. I mean, I cried. I stood in my bus on that day at that racetrack and cried by myself. And then when I pulled my shit together, I called Steve and he goes, hey, I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you a lot of things going on couldn't get, couldn't really get to tell you just yet. But yeah, let's sit down and talk about this.

And I think he came to the bus and we talked about it. And man, it just hurt my heart. And so when I saw, I know this is, I know we're so far removed from all that. I got questions, but I'm letting you finish. But, yeah, when I, my initial reaction, when I saw that he was going to crew chief the seven, it just took me back to that day. And it made my heart hurt. Now, immediately, I realized this isn't, you know...

He's not leaving. He's not leaving. But I don't know, man. You know, I was... An hour later, I was totally fine with it. And me and him even talked about... Did you find out, and we've got to be vague, but we were on a special project day.

Did you find out the day we were out doing that project? Is that when you found out? And did you find out about Steve going to do this one-week crew-jury? We're talking about him going to crew-jury. went to crew chief for a weekend. Yes. By the way, this is what we're talking about, with Spire.

I think it was during the lunch break. Was it really? Okay. Did you tell? No. Did you see my sadness? I didn't know why you're the tears, but I just felt like this.

You were over there kicking things. I didn't know what was up about that. No, no. I found out about the same time on Twitter. Yeah. I did too. So I didn't know when you had found out. Boy, glad I didn't bring it.

up and I was just like so I guess I'm trying to I'm I appreciate your honesty and that's interesting to know about how you reacted to that in 2013 I'm just trying to understand how you connect the two I don't I don't know I don't know I mean I don't think I did because in you know minutes later I shook my head like what get out of it yeah snap out of this and get yourself together And then I'm talking to Steve. I'm like, man, this will be fun. Go have fun.

Go for it. You know, that last year when he was crew chief and for me, his, the way he called races was was awesome because he didn't care, right? It was his last year. And I was thinking, man, you can go in there major upset, you know, top 10 off some incredible strategy or something, you know. But I have a theory. But I think that that hurt me.

And that was one thing in my professional career that, really, really hurt. Did it hurt you because he didn't come to you and seek your advice first? It hurt me because it was in, it was something great that was ending. I know, but you, it seems to me that, listen, first of all, he's well within his right. He's got a family. He's got things that are more important to him than you or racing. You know, his wife, his kids, all these things, golf maybe. So it seems to me that your issue wasn't necessarily that either time, but just the fact that you didn't know about it and therefore felt like you were a little slighted. No. I mean, I was floored because it was like the, I never expected it. Like it was

because you didn't, because he didn't come to you first. I think you're saying the same thing I'm saying. I'm not, it didn't. I mean, I felt like we were better friends that he would have told me before I would have found out on my own, but that was so secondary to, I, I don't, I really finally got a crew chief that gets me and I'm and and that we're finally getting something done here and that's going to end can I tell you something about you that you don't probably know okay okay because we're in the therapy session nobody's listening you respond better when let's let's let's put this in the framework of our business relationship and all the brand stuff that you and I do and there have been times when I've screwed up there's been times when I've done stuff and I have learned

over time. I've been working with you for 15, 16 years. It's better. You respond better when you know. Yeah. Listen, if I come to you and follow the sword, if I've screwed up, or if I come to you seeking advice or something like that, you just respond better. Now, if you find out another way, hell cometh with you when you respond. You know what I'm saying? I mean, like, this is it. I go way over to top. But you may be well within your... You may be... Yeah, but you'll be like, you know, whatever. Like, if I were to book a guest on this show... And not tell me. And not tell you.

And it may be somebody you love. But I'd say, listen, it's not good for me to not tell you. And I'll be like, Dale, listen, I can come to you. I'm better off saying, listen, I would like to book this person. What do you think? And you'll be like, go for it. I love it. Or something like that.

It's just you like to be involved. off the jump, and you always respond better, and you always treat things better. That's just a fact. That's just a fact. And maybe that's something that you have in common with most people. I would think I was this hurt because it'd be like Kelly walking in here right now at nowhere going, hey, I got another opportunity. I got to take it.

I'm leaving right now. And I'd be like, whoa. Like this is a forever thing. It ain't no, I'm going to leave whenever I get another deal. This like me and you, man. You ain't going to where? Well, I have to talk to you. Like, I mean, and my, you know, you may come up to me one day and go, hey, I get, this, there's a change in my life that's happening.

That's how I would approach it. I know. I would never spring something. I'm not going to like it. Right. But I would say, Dale. And I'm going to be hurt. He's going to cry.

I would involve you from the, not the, not here's my decision, but I would involve you in the conversation about, about, hey, here's what I would do. And you would be able to process that boy better. So you're going back to LaTar. I don't know how you found out in 2013. Was it in a very public way? No, I was in my bus. I got a text message or a call or something. Okay, that's how it was.

All right. So, yeah, you would have been heard by that. I hate to say this. It could have been, I was on the phone with TJ, just, and he was like, hey, man, I heard something. You know, because TJ, spotters, ear to the ground, kind of thing. He's like, I think it's a crew chief. You know, it was like vague.

Yeah. And I don't remember. I could be making it up. That would have definitely put me on a wrong trajectory if I find out from T.J. Just on principle. Just on principle. Well, so have you talked to LaTard about this crew chief thing? Like, since this old news, like, he went and did the deal, right?

Yeah. How'd they do? Bleu an engine and only did, like, half the race. I mean, you made a funny tweet about it. I know. It was after we talked. Oh, so you did talk to him. Yeah.

Okay. He called me fine. He just called me. Like literally, I've learned about it the same way everyone else did. I had my little pity party for two seconds. And then he called me 10 minutes later. And he goes, hey, man, what's going on? Just calling.

Checking in. And like we do. We do that. Like we stay in, we feel like that we, me and him, Burton, and Rick are on a group text that's been going ever since I started with them. And we communicate every day. every day we talk y'all are tight

and um just about goofiness right going on in our lives and so he was just he was calling me to say hey man I'm gonna do this thing that's cool which I thought was super cool

I think it's important people to know and I don't even know if we're able to say this but because but you know when we when you decided to go to NBC we have it in the contract and the language that Steve LaTart has got to be there

yeah like it's important to people know. I mean, maybe this helps people put it into context how important Steve LaTard is to Dale. Like, he didn't, the TV broadcasting wasn't going to be as interesting to him if Steve LaTart wasn't in the booth with him. Yeah. So maybe, you know, that ought to say something.

Yeah. I, he goes back in crew chiefs. I, yeah. Full time. Leaves NBC. I'm stalking Steve LaTart. Stalking Steve LaTart. That's what I'm doing.

Well, that was a great conversation. Thanks, Mike, for the therapy. You feel better? Yeah. Let's go ahead and get our guest, Dr. Jerry Punch. Come on in, Doc. Guys, Richard Chuders just told me a minute ago. Earnhardt Radio to recruit.

Dale, what a finish here in Atlanta. Incredible finish. How it was. Well, Dale Earnhardt climbs out with his ninth victory of Bristol. And Dale, that's what Bristol is all about. Take us to those last couple rounds. Didn't mean to really turn around. Mitt at Radis Gageo.

Earnhardt has won it. Here at Atlanta. Final lap at Talladegan. Let's do the rest of the case. Dale Earnhardt. Down to Victory Lane. Here's Jerry Punch. Here's a news flash.

Dale Earnhardt in Victory Lane at Daytona. Earnhardt Jr. and senior in Victory Lane. Amazing drive those final four laps. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Swoves both at Pocono. There he is. Dr. Jerry Punch. Yes, sir.

Man, we've been excited to be able to talk to you today. Wow, he's really here. Dr. Jerry Punch, people have been asking. Why would you? Do you know? Why would you doubt? Because, you know why? Because a lot of people this week, I don't know if you've noticed this on social media doc,

but people have been going, you know what you need to get is Dr. Jerry Punch. That's who you need to get. And I'm like, man, I could really have a lot of fun with these tweets here. But several people have been saying that. So you come highly requested. People wondering where you are, what you're doing. I appreciate that. Thank you, people, for whoever's making it.

Well, I put my glasses on. I'm getting a little older, so I need my glasses. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And for the people who requested that, I appreciate that. It's an honor, man. I watch the podcast. I watch Lost Speedways.

Love that show. Absolutely love that show. I'm an addict there in terms of, but this is so cool. What are you doing? I am, you know, I did, I still do some college football. Really? You know, I do, you know, basically my contract at ESPN after 33 years or whatever went away at the end of 18. And they said, would you do some games?

So in 19, I was supposed to do a couple games. up doing 10 games and then this year I did four or five games and had two or three canceled because of COVID so and then I just my my daughter works for NASCAR and she loves it and does a little show we're international their little pace lap show and she and I do our own little podcast we have fun with called rolling with the punches so you know she thinks it's really cool to sort of follow following your father's footsteps kind of thing so I know you understand that but we have fun because we like this we talk about you know she says dad you talk about the legacy people the old guys and the stories behind the scenes and people may not have not might not be able to tell on television

back in those days and she talks about the young people you know that and the the current or are up-and-coming young drivers so we try to cross a lot of a lot of boundaries and i sit home and watch you guys on sundays you guys uh you guys at nbc does such a great job and thanks and uh yeah it's awesome how he is a broadcaster i mean we don't we don't we don't ask people this you know why he does a great job he does a really really good job and and here you know i i just think it's you know it's fun because you have people, people want to hear what you have to say. You know, you could tell, and I'd be honest, you could tell when you first started, everybody's real nervous.

Everybody's nervous. And, you know, you got Jeff there, who's great, you know, the whole Stevie. I mean, but everyone has a niche, and you guys really cover that niche. And I love the energy. I love the energy. And as a play-by-play guy, it was in a booth with Benny Parsons and Ned Jarrett. You know, I understand that you've got guys standing beside you have been in the those cars and have driven those cars.

And I'm just trying to stay out of the way. And that's what Rick Allen does a good job of. But Rick is so good at what he does. And he just stays out of the winglets these guys just, hey, you cover what's happening, reach out and connect with the fans. And you do such a good job. I mean, the fans sitting at home. I'm sitting home.

I keep thinking, you know, I can almost smell the gas and the tires burning because I heard junior say this or Jeff Burton say that or Stevie or something. So it's cool. Well, let's talk about you, buddy. You raced. You used to race. If you call it. Yeah, I know.

Okay. I did. Yeah, I did. You raised hobby stocks. Where at? Yeah, Hickory Speedway. What did you do that for? Yeah.

Hey, I, uh, I, uh, I, like most kids growing up into Carolinas, I'd, you know, when I was a teenager, I'd go to all these different race shops and volunteer time to learn how to do stuff. Who, you know, for Tommy Houston, Harry Gant, uh, the guys that were the late model, you know, heroes up there. Just loading trucks and cleaning or picking up, whatever, built, you know, sweeping, and I learned to weld and I started learning some simple engine tuning stuff and you know, some body work. And if they'd back in a while, it would be three, four hours of there working on jacking out the, you know.

So I learned a lot of things about frontian setups and stuff and did a lot of work on the cars. I'm not sure it was real good at any of it. But my mom was in a beauty shop. This is Southern folks, beauty shop. She was in a beauty shop under a hairdry one Saturday. And the lady sit beside her and says, hey, my husband races, but he didn't have any help. He's by himself. He runs hobby stop at Hickory.

and he works on a car in a barn and uh and my mom says well hey my son helps all these different guys all over town so maybe i'll get him to go over and help your husband so i went over there and the guy's name was jerry satcher and he had a hobby stock car a 56 Chevy and worked on in a barn and i said hey i'll be your helper and he said well you be my crew chief because i was the only guy we had working besides him so he and i would work on the car under the car and uh his little his son with a little bitty boy, he was just a small kid. Then Dennis Setzer would move the lantern for us under the car so we could see. And then Jerry ended up winning the HobbyStop championship that year,

not because I did anything special, but because I think he had some help. And he won, if he won five races, you got promoted, he didn't have a car to go up. He said, next year, you're driving the car. So that's really how I got into the Hobbystock situation. And then from there, I got a chance to drive a late model that came about. How did that go? It was fun. I mean, it was, you know, my brother's-in-law was a guy named Junior Sester, no relation to Jerry or Dennis. But his uncle was Bobby Isaac. And so he was building short-track cars for Bobby Isaac. And I started working on some of those. He had a banjo car. And we had a Lofland car. Then I went over to Falson and worked with some guy nobody had ever heard of to build what they call a short-length car. And Bobby Wellman, and I went over there. And we were in a bar and building a car trying to try this new deal. And Isaac liked the car how it ran at Hickory, so we built that car.

And the next thing you know, they built another one. They bought one for me to run. And so I would go to Asheville and pulled in. Here's, you know, Sam Ard, Tommy Ellis, you know, Gant, Houston, you know, Ray Hendrick, all these guys. You know, here I'm trying to make the field at Asheville with it. Which Asheville? Asheville, Weaverville. Yeah.

Gotcha. So, you know, Jack. And remember, so anyway, I did that for a little while, and that was right before I was leaving to go to med school. And I realized I couldn't I couldn't race in med school is too dangerous. So Ned Jarrett, who was promoting Hickery, said, hey, you want to be connected. I want you come back on Saturdays and if you can get away and I'll let you work with me in the tower. Hold up, hold up. All right.

So when you're in high school, what's steering you to med school? Well, you know, I don't know other than the fact growing up in a small town. We had a small town GP who. What's the GP? General practitioner. and he was like the, you know, Marcus Wellb, MD kind of guy. He just came out at that house calls, and he probably saved my life when I was three or four years old. And I had croup and put me in a wash tub on the back porch and ice water in the wintertime to break my fever.

I always wanted to be like that guy. And I used to go sit in his office, which was a frame house on the square of Newton. And people would come walking in with a bag of tomatoes or cucumbers. People didn't pay me. They paid him and, you know, what they had, you know, they brought in. Paid them in vegetables. And vegetables. And I love vegetables.

So I sort of wanted to be that kind of guy. Okay. That's why I wanted to go to med school. And so while you're racing, you're enjoying this experience racing cars and being around race shops. Was there ever a time where you thought, man, maybe I might put it off or not go to med school or maybe I should, I want to pursue whatever racing was going to provide you? Well, I mean, I knew it was tough, and I was around a lot of really good guys that I stayed close with. Nobody was making a living doing it, right?

Nobody. Everybody was, I mean, you know, I knew your dad, you know, and we all had, you know, big bushy moustaches and long hair and torn jeans and dirty fingernails. And none of, and we were dirt poor. We were just dirt poor. And so I had a chance to go to med school, borrowed money to go to med school, and I figured that's where I needed to be. Bired money? Oh, yeah. From who? You could borrow it on a scholarship. It was a need-based thing, scholarship deal.

And I met the need. And then, you know, Ned knew I love racing. Ned Jerry knew I loved racing and knew I loved med school. And I went to med school at Wake Forest at Bowman Gray School of Medicine. And so it was only an hour from Hickory. And they had a deal where they told you every weekend you needed to take some mental health time because it's so stressful to be a medical doctor. And so that mental health time meant I could get away a few hours on Saturday and drive to Hickory.

Had to get out and get my car running and drive to Hickory. Ned paid me $35, which would buy. I was married back then and would buy diapers and four-wheeler for the week. To do what? I was sitting the tower beside Ned and run the scoreboard and run the caution lights. And basically, he was the announcer. I was sitting beside him sort of the operations guy. And we had the two guys sitting beside me like Robert Black.

These guys that were officials. Officials, yeah. And Ned did all the announcing. How was that experience? It was a blast until one night. Ned couldn't be there. And, well, Ned had it all set up. Ned was going to be inducted into the NNPA Hall of Fame at Darlington.

What year was this? Gosh, I don't remember now. Early 70s. Yeah, early mid-70s. And I'm sitting there beside him. And we had a big ladies' night crowd. It's going to be packed house of Hickory. But he's got it's all set up.

He's got Barney Hall coming in. You know, we all know Barney coming in from Elkins. Going from Elkin down to Hickory. Do the Saturday night, big show. We didn't go on to Darlington later on. when Ned goes down to the NMPA Hall of Fame walks in the dinner that night looks up and there's Barney Hall, the MC in the dinner. And he says, uh-oh.

And it goes over and Barney's. He says, you're supposed to be in Hickory tonight, Barney says, my bad. And so Ned gets on the phone and calls Martha. His wife back of Hickory says, Barney's not coming. So Martha's, we're all panicking. People are pouring in. Well, their oldest son, Glenn, is driving in the race. So all they got this younger son, Dale.

So Martha calls Dale and says, hey, we got to do something. And Dale comes up in the tower and looks at me. He says, I ain't talking. You know, he's pretty. Little did we know back then he'd be one of the great announcer. But he was so shy and he said, you sit here beside that every week. You're going to do it, man. So I picked up the microphone and started talking.

We had a huge crowd, great race. And Ned gets back to following week. Apparently got some decent feedback. And he said, why am I killing my voice every Saturday night when you and I could be splitting this? And then I can go on Sunday and do MRN or whatever. And that's how it all started for me. And Ned said, hey, I'm going to see if I can get you on MRN, you know, after you're doing this with me for a while.

So that's why. Okay. So you did, you did track it. You did track announcing at Hickory, and then that led to an opportunity with MRN? Well, Ned took me to a couple places. He took me to Charlotte, talked to Humpy and said, hey, I got a guy that can help out a little bit here. And so I got to do some PA at Charlotte. At Charlotte, who was the PA guy? Bill Connell. Yes. Was he there then? Oh, Bill was there then.

Tell people who Bill Connell is. Bill Connell was, he was a larger than life and physically and figuratively guy. had a really deep voice, and he could make ice melting sound exciting. I mean, he was amazing, Mike. Really? Yes. It was unbelievable. I mean, he did something. Bill Connell did something once on the PA.

It was raining, and they said, get people fired up. And it was pouring rain. No cars on their track. He made some, you know, coming out of turn four. You know, it's a tar over the wall. And people were coming. Car doors were opening in the parking lot. They thought they were practicing.

People were pouring in the rain. You know, he was just unbelievable. He's a man. How do you spell it? Is it Kate? So C-O-N-N-E-L, I believe. Okay. Yeah, he was, you know, he was a big guy.

You know who, I think there's some trivia. Was he not in Last American Hero? Say that picture on the wall over there? Yeah. Look at that behind you. Yeah. The one on the right, far left. That's Bill Connell.

That's Bill Connell. That's him. Bill Connell's on our wall? He's on your wall. I mean, hey, he was in that, he was in that one. I think he was in, you know, and he was in Stroke race, I think. He was in an announcer then.

Yeah. But there he's just a crewman in a movie. Yeah. He was awesome, dude. He would scream everything. Okay. Scream it. Oh, and unbelievable.

Yes. And he would sound awesome. You know, the old announcers back that would cup their hand over their ear and be like, I had no idea why. I did it because he did it, you know, I didn't know. And then he would take his hands. Why did they do it? So you could, actually, you can hear better if you pull your ear forward.

To what? It gives a little bit of a resonant sound. To what? What are you listening for? You're listening for you, basically. Oh, yourself. And so, like, if people, you know, so it just makes the sound. It makes you hear.

And he would scream so hard. He would literally have to hold parts of himself with his hands. And I'll leave it at that. How long did he do this? Years. Like, until what year? Gosh, you know, he had some, end up having some health issues, but he was, he was, I mean, he was people would go to Charlotte because he's, you know, and the good thing is he liked

to be in the tower, you know, and he didn't want to go down that. So when I started doing stuff at Charlotte, I got to go do pre-race. You know, I'd get all these great pre-race shows with Humpy Head, and I would be the guy hosting the pre-race. I'm down there with, you know, with Dick Clark of American Bandstand and Barbie Benton, you know, who was the co-hosts. You know, and, you know, all these great bands there brought in, so I got to do that. 2003 was when he had to leave the booth. There's a, I'm reading an awesome story. And in The Last American Hero, he played his part a little too well.

They filmed the fight scene in Hickory. He was supposed to throw a punch. He actually broke the nose of the deputy. sheriff up there. Oh my gosh. Yeah. His voice was amazing. And Mike, he, so when you go to a baseball game, right, you got the guy up in the,

that's who he was at Charlotte. He didn't do TV. You know, you didn't see him onto television, but you heard him if you were at the track. He was, you know, over the PA system. And it was, we piped that stuff. I would go and watch from the apartment or a condo at Charlotte. Yeah. Yeah.

And we piped it into there and it was. So would he have been there in 2000? or 2003. Maybe. Yeah. Because I'm telling you, one of the, I don't have many, I don't go around walking around talking about PA announcer stories at racetracks. But if he was the guy that was at the dirt track when the World of Outlaws was there,

I to this day still tell this story and imitate it because Danny Lassoski had wrecked. And I don't even know that it was him, but from what I'm hearing you guys say, this was him. Danny wrecked. Right. And so this PA announcement. would come across during the breaks and be and give updates danny the dude lasoski is at the hospital and and just whatever and i don't even think you left the track to be honest with you but during one of the breaks in between like right before the right before the main you hear update from the

hospital danny the dude lassocky has suffered a broken leg or whatever but danny the dude lassocky has checked himself out of the hospital and he's a coming back. And I mean, that crowd went nuts. And I swear to this day, I still, I just, I just, I'm still here. He's a checked himself out of the hospital and he's a coming back. I mean, it was so awesome. He was like a cult hero at that point. Before we get too much further down the road with your broadcast and everything, you were the backup QB at NC State. I was the backup to the backup. the backup. Okay.

I was a walk-on quarterback, and Lou Holtz was the head coach there. Oh, wow. And so we ran the option. So, yeah, you know, Lou hated fumbles. And I'll just, quick story is he hated fumbles. So the starting quarterback, you know, on a pitch, on a triple option pitch, threw it behind him, pitch back, and so he pulled him out of the game, pulled him out of a scrimmage, rather, at Carter Family Stadium.

Backup quarterback tries to try and tries to hand it off of the fullback fumble, pulls him out. A couple more fumbles go, and he looks around, and I'm standing beside him with a clipboard, you know, just making notes. He looks down at me, realizing I'm the only option. left. And so he sends me in and I realized triple option. I'm going to, I'm not going to pitch it. I'm not going to give it. I'm going to show him what an athlete I am. I'm going to keep it and run down the field. So I call the, I mean, it's supposed to be an option where you make a decision. I was no decision for me. I was keeping the football. So I pull the pull it and fake the

pitch and take off. I run like 11 yards downfield. Run out of bounds. You know, I'm thrilled. He comes racing down the sidelines, puts his arm around me. And that big booming voice, he says me, punch. It's not that you're slow. You just reach your maximum speed, quicker than everybody else. I said, coach, I just ran 11 yards. He said, yeah, but a quick quarterback would have a score. Now I said, yeah, okay. So I realized, yeah, I was the backup to the backup.

That's pretty impressive. So Ned Jarrett's kind of like a father figure at this point in your life. You're getting opportunities at Hickory and Charltoner Speedway and then you go to MRM. All the while, you're a doctor. Like, how are you balancing? Like when I hear a doctor, you know, and I think about people that chose that profession, like that's 24-7. Like, that takes everything you got just to be able to to acquire the knowledge needed to be able to go in there and perform the task and the

job. So how are you balancing becoming a doctor and going to med school and all the things? Well, I mean, the medical school was tough and it was demanding and, you know, I, you know, Ned was kind enough to come to Winston-Salem, you know, and I couldn't go very many weekends. He'd pick me up on a Friday and we'd go down in his bush van. We'd go down right to the track. I got it right. Nell was like a second dad. And we would do qualifying on radio back, back and no one did qualifying. So we would do qualifying. We'd back his van on pit road, Darlington.

And we were the only qualifying brought with radio. WFMX, out of Statesful. You know, we'd do that, and the drivers would qualify. And then they would come get in the Bush van, or I would go get them. You know, here's Richard and Kay. And these guys just came to the van and sat and talked to Ned and I. And toward the end of qualifying, Ned said he had to go do the Bush Poll Award, so I would finish to show up.

And we typically would have somebody stay over. And we could always depend on Marty Robbins to come back. and hang with me. I love Marty. So Marty would come back and he and I, it was a country station, so he and I would finish the radio broadcast to qualify. But yeah, it was, but as far as balance, I wanted to be an ER doctor so I could schedule my hours and schedule my time and not have to be on call all night. And you can't be a practicing physician in an office because your patients can't look on TV. My doctor's at Talladega this weekend. I got no shot. Or he's at Riverside. I got no shot.

So as an ER doc, and then I ran my own ER group later, so I could schedule myself. And even though I ran the company, you know, it was, I could be gone back and forth. And it was cool. You know, it was cool. You know, your dad always kidding me. He said, you know, we were buddies. He said, you went off school. He said, all you did is become a doctor.

I became a champion. And I said, okay, I get it. I get it. Jesus. So you mentioned Bobby Isaac. You were with him the night that he passed away. Hickory. Yeah. Bobby was, he was like a member of our family, and he had been some rough times,

and he'd been at the Pinnacle, you know, winning sudden land speed records, and we'd go to races when I was a kid, and he'd be driving to K&K Dodge and Harry Hyde and, you know, buddy Parrott and all those guys on that team. But if he'd fall out, we'd leave. And so if he ever fell on a race, we'd have to leave right then. And so later in light, you know, all those years he was winning races and winning land speed records, he'd give everything away. He'd got tools, and, you know.

So here he is trying to. to get back and run late model. Right. So he had won the national, he won the championship in the cup and all that and then just decided one day that he wasn't going to race anymore. Yeah. Right. And he took like a couple of year break, right?

He did. Took a couple years of, well, climbed out of the car. Remember it Taladega, got out of Budmore's car. Oh, because you heard ghost or heard voices, whatever. So let me, yeah. Let's talk about that. There's a race at Talladega. He's apparently leading the race.

That's the tail and pulls in the garage and gets out. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah, he did. He climbed out and he said, You know, he told Bud Moore and those guys that I, you know, heard voices, I think my personal opinion being around him a lot and as a physician is that he was having health issues. Really?

My guess is, and I never ask him because he's a very private guy, even though he just be he and I working on the car, my guess was that he probably was having chest pain. And he just got out of the car. That's my guess. So he, but the old story is that, you know, since Talladega is built on an old Indian barrel ground, the land is cursed and he had heard story. He was hearing voices as he's going around the track and decided to pull off in the middle of the race and quit.

And he did. He got out and didn't race again. So he gets back in a late model a couple years later. Yeah. And suffered a heart attack on the racetrack. Is that right? Right. Right.

He did. He did. We went to Hickory that afternoon and I came from medical school and up there and I was the only guy he had, just me and him. Really? And we had a couple of volunteer guys who were going to be there. But we kept putting tires on it, and he was so loyal to Goodyear from all the years in cup racing. But Goodyear wasn't the way to go on short tracks. Firestone was the tires,

and the Gene White Company. They were all there. So I'm trying to get in to put the firestones on, and he won't. So he's not feeling good. And so Butch Lennley's car pulls in. And Mike Beem is a crew chief for Bush Lindley. And Mike comes over and says, hey, man, you know, Isaac, is that the car you guys built for Isaac? I said, yeah. He said, you're not going to go and go and go and I'm going to go and I'm going to go and he's going to go. I'm going to laying down at the car in the infield, Hickory. He comes. He's really a lot faster. And he says, why don't you get in and run some laps?

So if I'm not feeling great. So if I have to pull in, maybe you drive it. And I said, well, hey, you know, I'd love to, but I'm supposed to work for Ned tonight upstairs. You know, I said, I don't know what I do. I can't let Ned down. He's been so good to him. He said, I would be all right. So long story short, you know, he practices a little more and it still doesn't feel good. So then I go see him and some other guys get there.

They're going to help out. And I go up and sit in the tower. Race starts. He's running the second or third, 40 laps to go. starts weaving in the backstretch, slows down, caution lights come out, because someone flipped the caution light up in the tower. And he comes down pit road, and they're over at the Windonet, and they talked to him for a minute.

He goes back out, green flag again, by two more laps. He comes down pit road. Again, they pull him out of the car. This time they're calling for the ambulance to come up pit road. I tell Ned, I got to go. Wow. And so I leave. I follow the ambulance to the local hospital,

and it was at Catawam, more there at Hickory. And the local hospital doctor was a local general practitioner. So I'm in my second year of med school, but I still don't know a lot. And so I'm talking with Bobby there. And he says, Doc, old car drove so hard tonight. He's got his fire suit off down around his waist. It's just me and his wife there. And they're going to do some x-rays on him.

And they hadn't done an EKG nothing yet. And he collapses in full arrest. And they call a doctor in as a cardiologist who lives about, lives down in Newton. He's on the way to the hospital and we're doing all the CPR stuff. So here I am. This is my hero. Yeah. And I'm on his chest doing CPR and his wife is five feet away crying. And he just didn't make it. He just didn't make it. So I, boy, it was a, I didn't goodness. I didn't know what to do. And I called Ned, who was already home. Because by the time we got everything done, it was one o'clock in the morning. And then I called

Ned. I said, hey, I'm at the hospital, Ned, and Bobby didn't make it. And he said, what? And he said, I'll be right there. And he said, you got to call Pearson. So I called Pearson at home, and his wife said he's on his way back from running the baby grand race with Larry and David, I mean, Larry and Ricky. And I'll tell him as he gets home. So, you know, it was just a really, really tough one. That sounds like it, man. I didn't know all that. You know, that's, so is that the first experience that you had where you're, you know, this profession of being, you know, a medical doctor crosses, you know, the life and, and the lifestyle of,

of being involved to the racetrack. This is something that's going to continue to happen to you multiple times over the course of your career. And I was driving over here today and I was thinking about one of the things that I really wanted to ask you and you were with Rusty at Bristol in 88. You know, people don't know how serious

that situation was with Rusty. Right. You know, you saved Don Marmar's life at Atlanta in 1988, an arcer racer. You were present on Pitrow when Mike Rich was killed. at Atlanta in 1990. You know, you've had all these multiple, you know, occurrences and where, you know, your professional life as a physician

crosses the path of racing and what you grew up around. And I've always kind of wondered how you manage that. How do you, you know, you've got these amazing relationships with Ned, his sons, Dale, and dad, and everybody that you cross paths with, right? You're building these friendships and relationships, but you also are seeing these people injured and killed. How did you separate the two, you know? You know, the Isaac Knight changed my life because I went back to med school and was going to walk away.

And one of my professors at, wait, and he said, no, this should spur you to be the best you can be. You should be that guy. You should be that trauma guy, that cardiac guy, that is a difference maker. That if anybody's really bad, you're the guy's turning over the bed. you're going to give them the best chance to make it. And so that prompted me to go be the advanced cardiac life support instructor and the trauma guy I wanted to be. If somebody had something happen, I wanted to be the guy,

the best guy they had standing over the bed that can make a difference. And so getting back into racing, the relationships I had with all these people you're talking about, as you all know, a lot of drivers back then, they didn't go to doctors. Yeah. They didn't trust doctors. And if they did go somewhere, they'd give them medicine that, and these doctors had no idea what they're doing. And so they'd get on the racetrack. and 135 degree cockpit at three hours and they get dehydrated and the medicine creates problems,

they get toxic, you know, all kinds. So they'd come to me because they knew it was total confidentiality and which was a, you know, a blessing and a curse because, you know, a lot, I mean, but it was, and I loved it because it was a, and I respected them. They knew I was never going to say anything, you know, even though I was a broadcaster. That was professional confidence. Nothing went on the air. But it was tough.

I mean, I had, I had the points leader one night called, back before we had motor coaches. They were at the hotel in Wilkesboro, and North Wilkesboro, and he's on the front row, and he's the points leader for a cup, and he calls me at 2 o'clock in the morning, and he's down the hallway, having a heart attack, he thinks. And I run down there, and one of his crew members is already at the door, and we go in, he's balled up on the floor all sweating, and turns out it wasn't a heart attack. It was a gallbladder attack, and so we get him, I always carried a little bag with me. We get him tuned up, and I said, you know, tomorrow morning, we're going to see, we're going to see how you doing.

I said, you know, my whole deal with these guys is I'll do everything I can. to help you, but I will not let you put yourself or somebody else in jeopardy at the racetrack. If you'll listen to what I tell you, and I'll do my darnness to get you tuned up, I called the helicopter at Winston-Salem. Baptist Hospital. It was coming to Wilkesburg. Said, bring this and this and this tomorrow. I want to give this guy some IV fluids in the morning, which we did. Nobody knew about it. And he got in Junior's car and drove the race, you know. So that happened time and time again, you know. And it was just the relationships, you know, people break a rib and needed it to be blocked and, you know, because they could drive.

and, you know, that kind of stuff happened. So it was, it was. You sort of, I think that's amazing that you say, like, you changed, you positioned yourself mentally to where, like, if those guys were going to be in need, you want to be the guy that was there. You know, you wanted, having that relationship with them made you want to be there available for them in that, in that moment when they needed you the most or needed somebody like you the most.

But I have to imagine that some of those situations were so, I mean, you know, racing's a violent sport and some of those situations, I don't know how you could put some of that stuff away and go back the next week and keep doing it. I don't know. I always wondered that about you. Because when I was a kid, I was, you thought you were a doctor at the racetrack.

Yeah. Because people called you Dr. Jerry Pottch. And you were often helping people. Yeah, yeah. We're trying. But I know now that you were a broadcaster. Right. You know, and there was another,

they had a doctor. Yeah. You know, and that you, did that ever become ever, How did you manage that and I guess what is the etiquette in the field where there is a medical staff at the track? They are there to provide assistance to anybody who's going to be in any kind of problem. But you know, you're a doctor, you're going to jump into action if you see something and somebody who needs help. So how does that work? When there was an accident at the track and somebody was hurt and you're on the scene, how do you work with the team that's already there and responsible for that event?

Well, in the early years, NASCAR is different now. So much more sophisticated down. The early years, at times, until race day, there wasn't a doctor there. It wasn't a doctor there when Rusty flipped at Bristol. There wasn't the doctor they had at Atlanta back in the old days. Atlanta was just a retired, semi-retired general practitioner who really wasn't trauma trained. That's what I did for a living, five, six days a week. So when Don Marmer hit, you know, and I end up going up there and being involved with that,

you know, we're doing the full cardiac. We're doing the full trauma code on him trying to keep him alive. I can get the helicopter there. I'm on the phone with the helicopter and I'm dealing with him. How are you on, how do you have that, so seconds, you know, you have seconds to make these. How are you on the phone, like how do you, you are you going into the event with all that stuff prepared? No, no, no, no. I'm actually, I was actually doing, I was doing pit road for the Arca race.

And I'm down at turn one, where all the leaders are on the pit road. And I know that, and it's not a live race is being taped. And we have a heard a loud crunch with Aaron. and I'm, you know, we're on a red flag. And so I'm walking up pit road in the arque. official says to me, I said, hey, what, bad wreck up there? And the official said, yeah, he's gone. And I said, what, he's gone? What do he means gone? And they told me, so I go take off running and I get up there. And the guys from Atlanta South, ambulance crew, great crew, they're trying to get him

out of the car. And the car's, and he's pinned in the car and bad situation, multiple fractures. So I climb in the car with those guys. I still got my fire suit on. I put my microphone in my pocket. And next thing you know, we're doing, I'm putting a line, we put a line in his heart. We're doing all kinds of stuff there and get him to the care center. The guy, the doctor, doctor in there just says, do what you got to do. They don't have a lot of things I need, but I knew I could do this and this and this, try to reduce pressure in the brain. And so then we got the ambulance, helicopter on the way, but they won't come unless he's stable. So I'm sort of fibbed to them on the phone. As I'm talking to the driver and we're doing all these things, I'm telling the helicopter, he's not. I mean, but if they, it's the only chance he's got is if we get him there, get them there. And I'm, and I'm ventilating him trying to reduce the intracranial pressure. So we doesn't, I mean, just all these things I'm trying to do in a hurry.

and we stabilize him enough. The helicopter gets there, they fly him out, and he survives. And I walked back out and get everybody to start to race. And I didn't know this at the time. All the folks in the TV truck were been sitting there for 45 minutes, listening through my microphone that was stuck in my pocket. And I come back and say, hey, guys, I'm sorry, I'm back. And then I hear all these cheers erupt from the TV truck like, holy cow,

I said, well, you know, what are you guys? And they said, we heard everything, you know. Wow. It was a. Have you, did you, have you seen Don? No, no, I haven't. But it was about, gosh, it was about 10 years ago that I got a phone call. It gives me chills.

I got a phone call on Christmas Eve. And it was from his son. And they said, we've been trying for 20 years to get your phone number. And he said, we're having family Christmas. My dad's here. And I wanted to call you and tell you if I was a family. Thank you. Dad didn't ever race anymore, but we got him with us, blah, blah.

And thank you, Dr. Pund. I mean, that meant more to me. that thank you from that family there up in Chicago area. So it was pretty cool. That's incredible. I still don't know how he managed it. I mean, like, you ask, how are you able to manage both? And I think I've come to the conclusion that it's just a gift, Doc.

I don't know how you were able to. I know how hard TV is. Yeah. I know how I've heard how hard it is to be a doctor. I can only imagine how you could just switch it on and off and be at the ready. You know, it really reminds me, and I don't want to underplay this, because you're just such a treasure to the. sport. But like that

beautiful scene in Field of Dreams, which is one of my favorite movies, where Doctor Moonlight Graham is playing, he's doing what he loves, he's got that opportunity, and then there's that emergency where he crosses the line and all of a sudden he's a doctor, saves the girl's life. You are

a real time, Moonlight Graham is what you are. No, really. It's an amazing thing. I was telling Dale before the show, like, I didn't realize, everybody knew the Rusty Wallace story, which we can get into that. But I'm like, I didn't realize you saved that many people.

Like, all the people that you were on that. I didn't know that Rusty was in bad Jake that day. Well, you know, when he hit and tumbled and rolled, and I went to the car and, you know, he wasn't breathing. Because I'm literally, for me to you, when the car comes to rest, I'm standing on pit road talking to Rick Bass. It happened right in front of everybody in the middle of practice. And it was just him and your dad on the racetrack,

and he cuts a tire and balls you when it rubs a tire and he hits the wall. And I look up. And I heard his crunch. I look up. and I see this Pontiac Grand Prix looks like a punt, spiraling nose first up. And then it gets in the air and the wind catches and it turns sideways and comes down and then barrel rolls four or five times and comes to rest with the front of the car on the pit wall. And I'm literally from me to junior from the car.

And I jump over the pit wall and the roof is pushed down. The window net's buckled down. I can't get the window net off, but I can see Rusty slumped over. He had an open face helmet slumped over in the car and blow it out of both sides of his mouth. And I can see his uniform. He's not breathing. He's not moving. And so, you know, I'm trying to get my hands through the window net just to grab his airway because I figured if he's bleeding into his mouth or whatever, I can at least get his jaw pulled forward to try to get some semblance of an airway.

And then next thing I know, I hear someone yelling at your dad. He stopped his car right behind Rusty's and jumps out. He's screaming, you know, what can I do? What can I do? I said, you got to get this roof off. I got to get to him. And so he screams, and Dick Beatty jumps across those NASCAR, you know, director of officials. He jumps across and he says, Doc, you have.

got to back away, we've got to cut this roof. I said, I can't back away, Dick. I'm holding the airway, but you've got to get this roof off. And so Beatty takes his Winston Cup hat and puts it over my face, and he took another hat and put it over my face, and I'm holding him through the window, and it best I can. And they're sawing this roof so I don't get sparks and stuff in my face, and we get to Rusty, and within the next few minutes, it turns out, fortunately, Rusty, well, knucklehead, but Rusty had eaten a ham sandwich. He had inhaled a ham sandwich right before he got in the car. And when he did tumbles, part of that ham sandwich came back up, There was a sovacus and blocked his airway. So the not breathing wasn't trauma related. It wasn't head injury related. It was physically the blockage from the sandwich. So the more having an airway and letting him, you know, it sort of resolved itself. But we didn't have, I didn't know that. But we needed to have an airway. I knew he was going to be in cardiac arrest within a minute. So we gave him an ambulance. He goes to the hospital, gets admitted, calls back to the track that night via the TV truck and says, hey, I'm in the hospital. I'm fine. Tell Doc, I'm good. But he looks terrible because I had soot all over my face and hair paint.

But the best part of that whole story was about an hour before the Bush race started at night, now the Xfinity series. Your dad comes walking down pit road right to me as I'm getting ready to start the race as a pit reporter. And he says, hey, you know, said, you probably save Rusty Wallace's life today. And I'm looking at him like that. And he said, I don't know. He said, why would you do that? Why would anybody do that? And I said, did he stroke that big mustache?

So anyway, we got lucky that day. Was he unconscious through that whole thing? When did he regain consciousness? Right when we got him in the ambulance and got him on the backboard and got him lifted him out through the roof and got him in the ambulance. And I went in the ambulance was parked right on the straightaway. We got an IV in him and he started to, and we were going to suction him out. He started breathing a little bit more. A uniform started moving and we were getting ready to intubate him and put a tube in and he didn't have to be breathing on his own.

So he started coming around in the ambulance. And were you, were y'all broadcasting practice? No. Okay. So you weren't working at the time. I wasn't working. I was just doing some homework talking to actually Rick Mass, one of the busieries drivers that I didn't ready to run that night. Were you ever at the track as a doctor first?

I did physicals. Yeah, Daytona. I worked the infield care center. That's where I started. And I worked the infill care center. I'd go there and work, I'd work the mornings, and then I'd go do the PA in the afternoon. What year was that? I mean, gosh, 80, 81, 82.

Early 80s. And I would go. And then during the speed weeks, we initially would do driver physicals down there. And so I did a ton of guys that I got to know. Bobby Allison, AJ Ford. All these guys would come in and they'd ask for me because they'd try to talk me out of doing the exam. And I'd say, guys, you know, this has got to be a complete fiscal.

I wouldn't be doing you a, oh, yes, you would. I said, no, I wouldn't be doing your service if I didn't do the complete exam. Oh, yes, you would. No, no, no, anyway. So you mentioned dad and knowing dad, even back in the, you know, back in the Hickory days, what was it that started y'all's friendship? We were friends because we came from similar kind of backgrounds. My mom and dad worked plants and hard work.

and we were chasing their dream, you know. But our friendship really took off out of, actually almost out of a fight. Between you do? Between the two of us, yeah. It was a situation. It was ugly, and it's my, you know, but we were at Dover. I was doing the pit road for, it was just started in TV as a pit reporter. And the final few laps of a race, he has a tire going down, doesn't win the race.

You know, you know he was impatient on the racetrack. He was more impatient after the race getting out of there. So they send me, because he and our friends, they send me to garage area at Dover. This was before they had the back gate. And to get a quick interview with him, we're in commercial. And he's in the car. He's weaving his way through the garage. And I said, they were 30 seconds back.

We're coming right back to me. He said, man, I got to go. Got to go. You know, and I said, my camera guy, Corky Corkman, this big old giant, great guy. And he's just standing at the front of the car. And he's easing over in front of the car so Dale can't move. And Dale's bumping him. And Corky's trying to hang on with that big camera and he's bumping him.

And finally, we're like 10 seconds back. I said, hey, just one quick question. You're coming right back to me. and so he bumps Corky real hard and goes whips around Corky and takes off. Well, Corky almost falls back carrying that $20,000 camera, but it wasn't the camera. It was the fact that he could have broken his back or hurt himself. We were hot. And so the next week was Martinsville, and I go straight to Martinsville, go straight to the three truck.

And I walk in, I see David Smith, Will Lentstein. I said, where's your boy? He sees up in the front. And I said, well, you better find R.C. I said, this could get ugly. So I went up there and I said some, and Dale's laying down. I said some stuff I probably shouldn't have said. What did you say?

I said something like, man, that's, you know, I said, you're better than that, man. You could have hurt that guy. I said, what's wrong with you? I said, you need to have, I said, you need to kick my ass or I'm going to kick yours, one. But we've got to have this out. This is ridiculous.

You could have hurt that guy. And he's laying there, so calm down, Doc. I mean, I didn't mean, and Childers comes walking in, and his eyes are big as saucers. And suddenly, and your dad was great, in all honesty. I was probably out of line because, I mean, obviously the sport needed him more than he needed me, so that was probably not a good move on my part to be up there confronting this guy. But I was just angry and upset.

And we were friends enough that he said. that up and where he was laying down and looked at me. So, man, he apologized. And he said, you go find Corky. So when you got, I see Corky, I want to apologize to him. And so we talked to that a little bit. But from that, that confrontation, our friendship and the respect for each other grew immensely. And so literally, an hour later, I'm getting ready to do a practice show.

And he comes walking over and sees Corky, walks right over to Corky in front of everybody and apologizes. I mean, he didn't have to do that. Yeah. But that's the kind of guy he was. And so from that point on, every time we did a sit-down interview or went anywhere, it was corky and me and it was when he won the first road course race climbed out of the car at serious point or sonoma whatever it is now he gets out of the car and he takes a steering wall off and hands it to corky corky's shooting with a camera and takes one big poll and he gets corky

i mean we went to the hot bahamas on the boat and did stuff with him me and corky i mean it just my relationship got so close and from that point on we we spent a lot of time on the phone at nights and the weekends he'd call me we'd chat and just come sitting and you know the funny part the interesting part is and i'll stop is that when we would talk We'd sit in the pickup truck and talk or he'd call me a house that night. We never talked about racing. It was not about racing. Everything about racing.

Like, what would he call to talk about? I mean, you don't have to get into specifics, but I'm just curious. I mean, like, would he ask you, like, medical-related stuff? Occasionally. Occasionally, I think later in life, he would ask medical stuff. And, you know, he asked me, you know, a lot of it was by family because we had similar backgrounds. I'd been married before and had kids and was chasing a career and crew chief changes.

I mean, he'd talk about, you know, Literally, he'd call the house. My wife, Joni would answer. And I'd be in, if it was a weekend, I wasn't doing a race. I'm doing a football game. I'd be in my office going through a media guide. And she'd say, it's Dale. And I'd put the phone up there and he'd say, hey, ma'am, we're going to make a crew chief change, you know, to three car, blah, blah.

He said, this is going to be a good change and so and so. And he started, and I'd just be doing notes and she'd come back a half hour later. He'd still be talking. You know, people, he wasn't known for being, you know, but with friends and around, you know, he would. But he asked me one time, a lot of medical stuff. I never asked him for anything, not a dime, not a penny, not an autograph, not a hat, nothing. Our relationship was just friendships. And he kept asking one time, he said, well, would you ever ask for something?

I said, I don't need anything. I don't want anything. You got a lot of friends who want stuff. I'm not one of those. He said, and he said, I said, you don't ask me for anything. I do ask you for medical stuff all the time. And we talk, and he asked me about LASIC surgery. Remember, I'll never forget this.

He asked me about doing LASIC surgery. And he said, in 1992 or three or whatever I was, he said, hey, man, tell me about that LASIC surgery. I said, well, it's a great way to be able to see. I said, he said, you look into it for me. And I said, is that the deal? Is that why you run over people because you can't see? I said, is that the deal? And he said, no, I run over people because they won't get out of my way.

And I said, well, okay, so I go. And I actually went in Charlotte and got a guy that was doing LASIC surgery. And he went and had my shirt. I had it done myself. And then I had about four or five drivers that, you know, but I won't mention names because it wouldn't be fair, but that referred to Lacey. He didn't, you know. And I said, so that's a deal. You want me to find out about it.

He said, well, yeah, you go ahead and do it. And I said, yeah, right. But I did it anyway, and it was great. And stuff like that. We were, he was cool. In my notes here, when your wife was pregnant, you were broadcasting a football game. What was his deal there? Yeah.

I know your dad wasn't a big football fan, college football fan, but he was Thanksgiving night. I'm in College Station, Texas, where Texas World Speedway used to be. It's Texas and Texas in a big, big game on Thanksgiving night. I'm doing on ESPN. He must have walked in somewhere, you know, some family function, whoever, and saw me on the television. and so he calls my wife Joni and says she was up in the mountains.

We had a house in Blowing Rock, and he calls and said, hey, I just saw Docs doing a football game in Texas that he'd take the four-wheel drive and go to the airport. We live in Blowing Rock and I said, I had to go to Johnson City to fly out. And she said, it's snowing side, but he's up there, Joni. He said, you're getting ready to have that young and you need somebody up there if you go. And she said, Dale, I'm fine. I'm like, I'm only seven months pregnant. I'll be fine. You know, and he said, not snowing up there.

And I'm going to send one of my guys up there on a four-wheel drive. was going to stay in the basement until Doc gets back. And so she kept telling him, no, no, no, no, you know. He called her back 10 minutes later, and Todd talked her into. She said, no, I'll be fine. So she ended up telling him not to. And here's the irony of that. Last January, this past January, my daughter, who was, who my wife was pregnant with at the end,

my daughter, Jesse, and I were at the NASCAR Hall of Fame and dinner, induction dinner. And we walk out, and one of your dad's longtime crew members walks over to me and says, Doc, I don't know if you remember that story, but years and years and ago when Dale was going to send somebody up, it was me. He had already called me and said, you're taking the four-wheel drive up to Blowing Rock to stay with Doc's wife. He said, that was me. He said, is this a little girl your daughter, your wife was going to have? I said, yeah, this is Jesse. And he said, and so Jesse had heard the story and she got all emotional, said,

holy cow, how special is that? Yeah, that's pretty great. That's amazing. So, dad had some pretty significant injuries in his career. Talladega broke his sternum. he called you when he had that injury. Yeah. What was he calling you for? He called me. It was a CBS race, so I wasn't there. And I didn't see the race because they went off the air for some kind of deal with the technical problem.

But he gets home and he calls me and says, hey, you know, I got hurt. I said, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, probably looking at you, I guess, you know, because I was, I ran the ER. So I said, I'll change the schedule. He said, how about you getting me in to see Terry Trammell up in Indianapolis? I said, let's go. So I went with him. We got on the plane, went up to see Trammel.

And I can tell he was hurt. He broke his collarbone here, the left collarbone, right next to the breastbone. The sternum is the breastbone. And we got x-rays up there, and the sternum is overlapped about an inch. So there's a sharp overlap where it's broken here in the middle, and the collarbone's broken. So Trammell does the x-rays, and Dale's sitting there in Teresa sitting there, and Trammell looks at me, and he says, hey, you need to tell this guy what the deal is here. If he hit something with this broken like that, first of all, you can't take a deep breath. You can't move your left arm.

So he said, Dale, this is going to take time to heal. And Dale looked at Terry Tramble and said, that's okay. This was Tuesday morning. He said, I'm not to be in the car until Friday. You know, it's for the brickyard. Yeah. So then we, so then I, you know, he, Adam and he's going to try to drive the car to brickyard. So I'm working to try to find a way to, can't give him medicine, can't give him pain medicine in the car.

So I'm trying to find a way to control the pain, even though it's sun's stable and he can't break, can't shave, can't do anything with his left arm. So I call, I got a buddy of mine at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and sent me a Tens unit, a transcutaneous nerve. It looked like a small heating pad that I put over the fracture site and I could dial it up. So I get to Indianapolis early and I go in a bus and I put it on. I'm dialing up and his muscles there for all doing this, you know. So he said, I said, you feel the pain? I don't feel it. I said, but it's like a bus.

I said, we're going to kind of control it. So he goes over. I'm getting ready to go do an ESPN practice show. So I go get my gear on and I said, I'll come over to the car in a minute. So I go over there and he's in the car. He finally was able to get in the car, but nobody wants to put the belts on him. And so David Smith will end those guys. He said, you've got to put the belts on him.

So he's sitting there. So I reached down in the car. I said, you're ready for this? And so I put my hand on the clavicle. And I said, I'm going to push. You're going to hear this loud click, which is where the bones are going back together. And I'm going to grab that shoulder strap, and I'm going to tug it real hard. And I did it.

And he went, like that. And I said, all right. I said, don't hit anything like that. And he said, all right, I got that. So anyway, long story short, we all know how he had to get out of the car there. This actually makes me wonder. Did you really want him in that car to begin? with? No, but I mean, it wasn't my call. I know it wasn't your call, but did you ever try to tell him,

did you ever make him want to consider getting out of the car? Well, from a medical, professional advice and friend advice. You know, I knew he was hurt. He would listen. You know, the good thing about Dale is, is he asked me a question. I'd tell him things he didn't want to hear at times. Yeah. And everybody else would tell him things he wanted to hear. And that's, and that was probably a part of our respect factor we had. That thing about getting out of the car, that was a week later. You know, he got out of the car at Watkins at Indianapolis. At the brickyard, right. He was so emotional.

Emotional. You saw the interview, and he said, that's my life, it's what I do. And, you know, he'd always said, you know, he would always tell me stuff his daddy said, you know, that Ralph said. And we'd share that off and on, and that's a whole different story. But some of those things are really cool. He shares some of those things that he heard from his dad with other drivers that would come talk to him. But anyway, he gets out of the car at the brickyard. Well, the next week we're at Watkins Glen, and I get a page to go.

go to the NASCAR hauler and it's uh i think the david smith or will end or somebody there and they said you need to go to earnhart's bus right away and this is like an hour and a half for qualifying and i'm thinking oh he's falling down and it's he's where you know i go running down there i walk in there's teresa's sitting there and richard chilters and dale and uh and i walk in and talking to tell down out of driving the car he said dale and i walk in and he said dale man it's a road course you got to turn left and right you got one arm you got a shift 12 or 13 times there's no way just no way. And he says, he said, Doc will tell you. So I walk in. And he says, Doc will tell you. So I got to be upstairs to host qualifying on ESPN with Ned and Benny and these guys. And so I only got

like 20 minutes. And so I'm sitting there and I said, look, Dale, you'd understand what I said, you know, it's not just a pain. You can, I know you can handle the pain. But if you hit something, like Dr. Trammell told you with this thing, with this clavicle broken, it's broken, it goes through your lungs and your heart. It's over. It's not a, you're not badly hurt. It's over. and then Richard says, Dale, I just don't think you can do it. And Dale just stops and looks right at Richard. Shears right at Richard says, okay, so if you tell me, Richard, that being in your car, I'm going to hurt your car, hurt your team, hurt your effort, then if you tell me I'm going to be that bad for you, I'll get out.

And I'll never forget, Richard Childa's looking right back in the eyes. He says, how am I going to tell Dale Earnhardt that being in my race car is going to hurt my race team? He said, hell, with one arm, you're better than 90-9 inches of the people in that garage area anyway. And Dale said, okay, it's done. It's done. I'm driving. So I leave and run up in the tower and I walk in, you know, and I'm getting my headset on. And Ned says to me, where you been?

I said, well, they had a little discussion. They were trying to talk Dale out of driving a car. He said, how'd that go? I said, not well. So he's one of the last cars to qualify. He goes out to qualify, and I'm calling the qualifying lap. I'm already emotional. I'm scared to death for the guy.

And he goes out and sets a new crowd. record and puts it on the pole. You know, that's that hurt so good. The t-shirt. You know, it hurts so good. And one-armed, one-a, because see what happened was they doubted him. They doubted him. Richard had, and those guys are saying, you can't do it, you can't do it. And he went out there, one arm shifting, he couldn't use his left arm. He was literally using his legs against the steering wheel, you know, and holding it and turning it in the corner, laid apex, and probably as what made him so fast because he had to wait to get back to the steering wheel to turn it. But anyway, he sits on the poll.

And I mean, I could hardly, if you listen to the broadcast, I can hardly talk. I said, not only is he on the pole, but it's a brand new track record. It had been sitting for four or five years. Nobody had touched it. And he, I mean, just so cool. So he and Dale Jarrett were on the front row for that race. I think he ended up running second in the race. I think you did.

Is it true that he would prop his arm up because of that injury? Like, would he do something like that? Because I remember of a Mark Martin story, and I can get to the Mark, Martin's for in a second, but like, did he do something with his arm to help alleviate the pain when he would drive? You know, I don't know because actually the collarbone was on the left. It was on the left side. So I don't know, you know, a lot of guys would do that.

A lot of those guys, I told you those guys back in the days that had medical, one of those guys had neck problems. The Kales and the Neds and the Parsons and those guys, and they would move their body around because they could back then because the seats were just, you know, but I don't remember him proper in his mind. So that's one of the things I went thinking about here in the last minute or two is the neck. So Daddy broke his neck at Michigan mid-90s. We had Larry Mack on the show a couple weeks ago, and Larry was talking about how dad didn't manage that injury or didn't get the work done he needed to to hit that fixed. You're aware, did he ever call you during that episode? Because

this is like a three, four-year period where he broke his neck, didn't tell anybody. Finally, like four years later, gets the operation or the work done in there to get it fixed. and he couldn't even really get his car dialed in because he couldn't feel his car. I couldn't drive his car right. But did he ever call you during any of that going, man, I don't know what to do or what's going on? He called me, and I, you know, he had doctors, you know, that he'd see, but I did his physical every year. In fact, I still got his physicals in my drawer at home that I did and for lots of reasons anyway. But yeah, we talked about that and then when he had his neck surgery, he did have his neck surgery.

Didn't want anybody to see him. We're having to wear that little collar for a while. But yeah, we talk. And people ask me about your dad. I'll tell you. One of my favorite stories was after he had that surgery. And I don't know if you ever heard it, but there was a little boy in the mountains who was like a make-a-wish kid. And he had a terminal illness.

And his dad's a farmer. And his dad asked him, what can I do, son? And the little boy said, I'd really like to meet Dale Earnhardt. And they knew time was of the essence. And dad said, I can't make that happen. There was a minister in the room who said, let's see what we can do. And he calls another pastor that relays down the mountain. That's where I'm from, was from an area.

I'd been up there before. So this preacher calls me, and I call over to Dale and say, hey, this kid, I don't know what his situation is, how much long. He said, Dale, so I can't go anywhere. I can't drive, I can't be in a car until this heals. And no, I don't want anybody to see me with this collar on. And I need some time. I said, well, I don't know how much time we got.

So he agrees. He said, if you can get this kid down here, I'll meet him and we'll make it happen. And so they load that boy with a respiratory therapist and a doctor in the mountains. And they drive him down early one morning in a private parking lot. at about daybreak and Dale goes over there and they get that boy out in his chair with his respiratory assist and his dad and his family and Dale kneels down beside him with that collar on I get emotional thinking about it and they take a picture together to my knowledge that's probably the only picture he ever allowed anybody to take with him wearing that collar after his surgery but that's just the kind of kind of guy he was I mean he wasn't going to he wasn't going to make that kid wait he couldn't go to him but if that kid got down where he could make it happen he was going to make that wish come true yeah pretty good cool. I can't remember I ever seeing a picture of him with one of those neck braces. Those things aren't very graceful. I mean,

they're not very dignified. And he's, you know, he's, you know, he didn't want anybody to see, think he was vulnerable about anything, you know. Right. It was just a situation. Well, there was an entire brand built around that, right? Yeah, exactly. What happened at 1998, my post-race championship party in Key Largo, karaoke, Tony Jr.?

Well, yeah, yeah. I called a race You know, your dad was in the booth with me. How was that? Because I've seen some of that recently. Oh, my gosh. On social media dad being in the booth. You know, I don't have, he never would tell me, we never sat down and had these long conversations about, yeah, this was great.

I've really enjoyed, you know, watching you. But I know that y'all probably, I know the interview is about as much as I got, you know, so I can watch that interview over again. I'll tell you a little more about the back part of that part you didn't see. Yeah. And that is that, you know, we loved you so much. He was so proud of all of his kids. I asked him about doing some TV.

And he said, man, I don't want to get into Boone 2 TV. I don't, you know, I don't, I don't want somebody asking me questions. And I'm going to be me. I'm going to give me an eye. I said, well, no, he said, well, you. He said, well, you know, he said, we'll do it. And then when it came time to you, I said, look, you know, junior's going to win this championship.

I said, well, I want to get to win the championship. I said, why don't you come in with us. So we built this whole open, our producer, Joe Fredericksson, who now works, still works at ESPN. She works in Sports Center on that side. We built this incredible open to the John Melanchap song, teach your children to tell the truth. Now is your time. Your time is now. Your time is now with all these faded pictures of him and you fading in and out. And so we came on the air with the shot of the

palm trees. And I said, you know, in the shadows of the palm trees here on South Florida, that today another sun is set to shine. And then the music started playing. Well, so what the the problem was is that before we went on the air, about five minutes before we went on the air, he kept saying, I want to see that. I want to see that. Well, the producer showed him the open. showed in the music and when he saw that he got misty eye he got emotional and i'm i'm mixed emotions i'm glad he saw it because he wouldn't have wanted to do that but he was so i mean it was just and then and then so he was prepared for it when went on the air was prepared for it and i asked him i said hey you know what we've seen we've seen your passion as a racer but now we see your

your pride as a father he said i'm a proud papa too you know and he was just gushing just gushing about the fact how special it was for him. You know, we talked about it. All those years winning championships and having car being a car owner winning in time, but nothing compared to having your flesh and blood become a champion.

He said, that's just, he said, that's just so cool. So anyway, go to the party that night. You guys have a big party. He invites, you know, our producer and a couple of us to party. And you and I guess Tony, the Yuri family and everybody's, you know, having a good time.

So he's getting ready to leave. He walks over to, says to me, he said, we're out of here. We're out of here. He said, you're going. He said, you're in charge of it. I said, oh, no way. I'm not responsible for what's going to happen next few.

I said, there's no way. He said, well, you're, he said, you're my friend, you're my buddy. You got good common sense. And you're a doctor. I said, they're going to need all of that, but I'm not the guy. I said, so anyway, a couple hours later, what might have happened, I'm not sure if it really happened not is several of us, several of us, including our producer and some people in this room might have been on a stage in a tiki hut singing karaoke. We had a great time.

I also learned that Tony Yuri Jr. cannot sing a lick. I could have looked at him and told you that. But, you know, he is no friend. But anyway, we had a good time. It's a lot of fun. Do you remember this? I mean, you know, it was Key Largo. Yeah.

Championship. It's foggy. Yeah. You remember winning a championship at that point. My gosh. Man, that would have been good. Oh, you worked on Days of Thunder. Or, well, you know, you were, everybody kind of did.

But what was your involvement? They just did this pretty cool little documentary on that, on the making of Days of Thunder a couple weeks ago around the Daytona 500. But Tom Cruise shadowed you for a day at Watkins Glen. And apparently you had a role in casting Nicole Kidman for her part of the movie. Yeah, well, Cruz and Robert Town, they brought him in unbeknownst to me in the dark on the morning race day at Watkins Glen and said these guys are going to walk around in a TV compasses. No one knows they're here. They both have ball caps on and torn t-shirts and dirty jeans and just

going to think their utilities are going to walk around. So Cruz was carrying a backpack with water bottles for me and batteries, which as I always say he was my assistant. And then Robert Town, the award-winning screenwriter was there with us too. And he wanted to and everywhere I went that morning in the garage area, they had a microphone clipped to the bill of their baseball cap with a wire running down to a tape recorder. So if I'd go talk to your dad or Rusty or Bill Elliott, they wanted to hear the dialect, how people talk to each other, how they picked on each other. They wanted to hear all that because they wanted to know, this is how these guys talk. And then when I went out to do the pre-race interviews, they were right there with me.

So no one was either the wiser of who they were. And then about halfway through the race, it typically at Watkins Glen, it gets hot, gets warmer, and there's a day warm. So Cruz pulls his sunglasses and his hat off, is wiping his face. And our other handheld camera guy, like two pits away, realized, that's Tom Cruise. So he spins a camera around and shoots Tom Cruise. It's up on the jumbo Tom Tram cruising. And he looks at me.

He said, I know you got to go. No problem. Well, in that week, Robert Town starts calling me. He'd call me in the ER in Florida. And we'd talk about every night when I get home from the hospital. And he's talking about casting a female neurosurgical resident. He said, we want a female neurosurgical resident. And he said, what do you think about Kim Basinger?

I said, well, she's too voluptuous. And I said, she wouldn't come across. He asked you this? Yeah, yeah. And I said, well, let me tell you what. I said, a female resident, neurosurgical residence is going to be, they're going to be pale, complexed, pasty because they never get out in the sun. They're always in the hospital, 24-7, probably stringy hair, very intelligent looking.

So he calls me the next night and says, hey, we got this, we got a perfect possible choice. He said, how about going to written this movie? I think it's called The Deep or something like that. He said, there's a Nicole Kidman in this movie. He said, here's the best part. She was the UCLA as a pre-med major. She's from Australia. She's tall, pale, pasty complex.

stringing his sort of hair. She comes across really intelligent with that accent. He said, and so I went and got the movie and looked at it. And I said, perfect. So, I mean, not that I was, but he's asking my opinion. So that's where I went. There's a lot of storyline built around injury, head injury, medical, the drivers in the hospital and all that. Did they like ever talk to you about, is this how this would be? How would this part get handled? What would happen here? Yeah. Yeah. We, you know, we, we, a lot, because I spent time at night with Robert Tan, when he was there, sort of helping write different scenes. And he would ask me.

Really? Yeah. And so he actually, I would go down to his hotel in Daytona, and then they'd fly me. They'd say, what time can you leave the ER? We got a plane waiting for you, and I'd fly to Darlington to shoot a scene and come back to the ER. But we rented a whole hospital that had been closed.

They told him Beach General had been closed, but they still had the scanner in there. So they said, we're going to shoot the scanning part with cruise landing on the scanner. So I'm working an hour north there, and they're calling me and said, we're here at the hospital. When can you get here? I said, well, you guys just shoot your scenes. I got to work.

You know, I got an E.R. to run. They said, well, we'll wait on you. So I come flying down there about 4 o'clock in my scrubs and my walk in. And they got him laying on the CT scanner on the table smoking a cigar, you know, just talking. And I said, no, no, no, no. I said, you know, dim the lights, get rid of the cigar, strap him on the table. And I said, and I go back here. I'm back there with Nicole Kidman and Robert DeValle.

And I said, no. And so Robert Town is there. And Jerry Brough coming. I said, I said, it's going to be really quiet. And I said, the only voice he's going to hear is yours talking to him about take a deep breath and hold it. And he can say something. And Robert Tank him up with, well, and when I'm in the car, I hear voices. It's a crew chief, you know, in my head and I hear him.

And I'd have that trust factor. And I said, now what do I, what do I need to know? Dr. Lovicki, I said, well, you need to ask the crew chief, what the helmet looked like. Was it cracked front and back? And the mechanism of injury is really important. Like, as you're talking about this, I remember all this in the movie. Absolutely. So I'm standing as far as from us, you know, Mike, I'm standing this far away from where they're

shooting in my scrubs and I'm saying okay you're going to ask him so-and-so because Robert Towns riding it and they're just in it so I was involved in a lot of those scenes as a consultant awesome did you show them how to draft with the sugar packets I I volunteered but I was turned down that do you show how do you still can you just do your lines like the I mean because the line you give in the interview with Robert Duval right yeah about the tires yeah what's special about them you know we actually were shooting that scene and Robert Robert Robert town had gone back to Hollywood, the Paramount, to do some stuff. They were trying to get this thing done.

And we're in Daytona, shooting that Victory Lane scene. And I go over to interview Cruz, and he could see in my eyes, the line I'm using to ask him a question is not something I would ever ask. So he just stops. And they're like panicking. He said, what's wrong, Doc? I said, I would never ask a drive with this in Victory Lane. I said, you don't want to be hokey.

And we changed some stuff around. And he said, what would you ask? And I said what I would ask. And then that's how the, you know, then with Robert Deval there, he's going to like someone's got some explaining to do. That's how that was all ad lib. And Cruz said, we're going with ad lib. And, of course, if he said we're going with it, we're going with it. So you ad lib

that line. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like Harry Hogg has, or yeah, it got some explaining to do. And that was not in the script. And I just, as I'm walking away, I thought they'd cut all that out, but they didn't. They kept it in. My goodness. I didn't know any of this. No. How could you? Wow.

I got a couple of Iraq questions. Okay. Victor Lane, 2000. Daytona. Dad, when he saw Bill France Jr. Yeah. You know, Bill France and your dad had this incredible mutual respect. And remember in 2000

was when Bill France was diagnosed with cancer. And he turned over running NASCAR, made Mike Hilton president. So he was battling some pretty serious illnesses. We're at Daytona. It's Friday. I rock race. Victory lane is not going to be crowded. Dale's dominating the race. And I run the Victory Lane, about an

opportunity for it's over. And I see a car coming through the infield, and somebody driving, and they pull up right behind him. Bill France Jr. is being driven over there. He gets out and sort of unsteady and sort of weak gets up in the stanzas, those bleachers are right behind Victory Lane. And I run up there to see him and say, hello.

Hey, Doc, how are you doing? I said, what are you doing here? And I said, I needed to see this. Okay, Mr. France. I said, great. Good to see you. Gave him a little easy hug. And I went back down. And Dale pulls in, when the Irock race. And, you know, he's in there getting the steering wall off and I put my head in the window because we're not live. It's being taped for ABC.

and I said, hey man, I said, you got a spectator here that came to see it. And I point up in the windshield, he looks like that. And he sees Billy sitting up there. And he jumps out and runs right up there and gives him a big hug. Because it's just special because Bill France, you know, battling cancer, all the things he was up against. But when he was over in his office and realized that Dale was going to win that race, that I rock race, he wanted to be there one more time. And so, you know, Dale goes up and we come down and do Victory Lane.

but I don't think anybody was the wiser or what that, you know, about how special that was. I guess to prove, I don't know whether it was to prove his friendship with Bill Jr., what everybody, he called him up on the phone in the middle of an interview between you and dad. Yeah, yeah. We did a special for called out for Outside the Lines, and we were down, actually, Korky and I had flown down on your dad's plane to interview Bill Jr. In Daytona.

We did the interview, Captain Jack, Bill Jr., and Captain Jack. Captain Jack. We did the interview, and then we're leaving there on your dad's plane. We're going down to the key, Chub Kay. So we're going down there. We land and we get on the boat, and we're going out across. And your dad's, we're up on the flybridge of the boat.

And your dad said, what Billy say? I said, he said, you were knucklehead like that. He said, no, no, no, what Billy say about me? Because we just came from talking to Mr. France. I said, well, he basically said he reaches over and grabs a phone on the boat there. And I wasn't paying a lot of attention. and he picks it up. You know, he's pretending to talk to Captain Jack on the phone.

And we're just up there, you know, and I said, okay, I'll go along with this, right? We're out in the middle of the Bahamas somewhere and we're shooting this. And he says, okay, Doc says you said I was on the uncle head, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's laughing. And he says, Doc, and he said, here, talk, talk to Billy. And I said, okay, I'll go along with it. Hello. And it's Bill France Jr.

On the phone. And he just, it's like that red phone that used to the bad phone. The bad phone to go from Moscow to Washington. So he picked it up. Yeah, that relationship was pretty doggone special. Larry Mack told a hilarious story during the 98 Daytona 500, like they got 11 or 12 laps to the finish. Like it's crunch time. And on the radio during caution, he hears Sunday money, this is Captain Jack.

Go catch a biggin today or something like that. He'll get you one the day. Yeah, Larry Mack said he was about to, what do he say? I was about to have me a come apart. I think RC went and grabbed him just in time. Yeah. Because his days with NASCAR would not have included tomorrow. That's right.

Back to Iraq, 2001, Daytona, you witnessed the incident between Eddie Cheever and dad. No, I'm talking, I guess the one off the racetrack, right? Yeah, yeah. Because so they're coming down to the finish, and Dad's leading, or, no, dad's trying to pass Eddie Cheever, and Cheever blocked him down in the apron and drove Dad across the apron into turn one. Big save. Oh, yeah. But sent Dad down into the infield.

blocking him pretty hard. They finished the race, coming around under Pace Lap, I think Dad spun Cheever out off turn two after the race. Right. And then they got together in the garage. What happened there? Well, I mean, I'm in Victory Lane, interviewing Dale Jarrett, but nobody's watching that because the crowds erupts when they see your dad spend

Cheever on the backstretch, and they come down pit road, so our producer, I'm the only pit reporter. He says, get up Pitt Road, and I run up there, and your dad waited for Cheever to spin and get back in the gas and head back to pit road. He wanted to follow him down pit road. So I get up there, and then, the in the in the in the in the speedway cops officials of keeping all the fans everybody back because they're on pit road while I'm coming up pit road with the camera and I and I get there just as

Dale gets to the window and Cheever window and Dale looks at him and says get out of the car he never hit a man on the car get out of the car cheever says uh well man I'm Dale I said get out of the car I said get out of the car I've never hit a man in a car get out of the car and and Cheever's like pay it white as a ghost so so we we back away back the camera ways a little bit so we can give him some little bit of room. And, and Cheever gets out, and Dale, and the crowd, and there start walking toward the front of the car. And Dale reaches over and puts his arm around Cheever's neck sort of like that, you know,

many and headlock. And he's pulling down. He's talking to him. And he's basically what he says to him, hey, man, you know better than that. And Cheever just thinks, Cheever told me, I said, I'm thinking I'm going to get an ass kicking right there. I'm in his sandbox with Cheever's quote. I'm in your sandbox and I did something stupid and I'm going to get an ass kick.

And what Dale did was he put his arm around and said, man, said, man, you know better than that. You could have hurt somebody, hurt you, me. A lot of people out there doing something like that. He said, man, you're an Indy 500 champion. You're an Indy 500 champion, man, I respect that. You understand what you made a mistake? And Cheever said, I'm so sorry. I know I made a mistake.

It ain't going to ever happen again. And Dale said, okay, we're cool. And I respect you. You're an Indy 500 champion, man, that's something. That means something. And then he walked away. And I've done a number of races in Indy over the years with Eddie. Achiever on our on our crew broadcast crew and from that day on it nobody nobody respected your

dad more than Eddie Cheever he said he showed me what a what a cool guy he was he could have punched me throw me he didn't do anything he just he said because I that shows how much respect he had for somebody who goes and wins the Indy 500 yeah one cool thing that me and you got to do together I forget what year it was the Olympic torch yeah yeah yeah you remember that 2001 2001 yeah yeah yeah Boy, it meant a lot to me. I have that torch on me, right beside my wall. They let us have. Let us keep the torch.

Our torches. Yeah. This would have been, what, like Salt Lake City or something? No, it was Charlotte. Torquets came through Charlotte. No, no, I know the torch would have come through here, but I'm talking about it. Yeah, Salt Lake City Olympics. They were sponsored by Chevrolet and Coca-Cola.

So back then, so the, your dad was supposed to run the torch. It was going to be, you know, Teresa and then Dale, and then Dale, as a torch flown from Greece into Atlanta. they ran up Atlanta to Charlotte, the last three people to run into Charlotte and like that little cauldron thing in downtown Charlotte was going to be the family. So obviously Dale Senior was gone. So, you know, it's, I got a call from over at the office. They said, hey, they asked Teresa or somebody who said, hey, you know, have somebody stand in for Dale that it would mean a lot too. And they called me. And I literally was, I couldn't believe it that I was, so we get on a bus.

They put us on a, you and me. on a bus dressed in our jogging pants I still I remember that picture now yeah mine might be a little small now

might look like a look like a biscuit so I'm trying to sneak out of a can but if I put it on the day but it would but we we got on that bus you and me and Teresa

and Taylor and they took us out of town and and the torch comes up and and it turns out I get off first and I run the torch like a sixth of a mile

and I like Dell Jr.'s torch. My family actually has that on a video of me lighting your tors. So nervous. Weren't you nervous? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And there's people lining the streets. I mean, it's the Olympics. Oh, sure. Tons of people. If you trip or fall, you're on sports center that night. You're leaving. And what happens if you put the torch out? It came out. Oh, yeah. You just can't go get another one tomorrow. I never thought about tripping or falling. I was more worried about the light. Yeah. This eternal flame that you're in possession of.

Yeah. My bad. You can't say my bad. And they go back. to grease and get another one. That's why I don't run fast. So in case, you know. He lit Teresa and she walked up and lit the calder and people were nuts. But that was cool. That torch is right beside me in my office and the picture of – Where's yours?

Mine was here. I think it's at home. Man, that's a studio piece, man. He's talking about his torch. I'm like, where is this thing in it? We should have – We got the Charlotte PA announcer on a wall, but we don't have an Olympic torch. We should have it in here.

I've got it. Yeah, that was fun. As you can see, Doc, we went and raided Dale Jr's house to decorate our studio. This is awesome. I love it. I love it. Somebody tells me that you, so, you know, I'm a big fan of Lost Speedways. We've got the TV show, me and Matthew Dillner.

Somebody tells me that while you were traveling to all these racetracks over the years, that you would go to these Lost Speedways as well. Yeah, well, not the ones that were lost so much, but if I was going through a town, going to do a football game in Texas or in Colorado somewhere, I'd go by, you know, Colorado National Park. Local short track. I just want to go see it. I love tracks.

I love, you know, it's like, I love, you know, one of the things I wanted to do is get a motorhome if I ever got a chance to retire and just go to these places, you know, go see them and or go find barns with parts of race cars out behind them and go just because everybody's got a story. Every track's got a story which you guys do such a great job of telling. And I love the fact that, you know, you go to Columbia Speedway. I think you, or Bobby Allison or you have Richard Petty, you know, telling the story. The video of Richard Pelly, Petty telling the story of the track you were. You see Wendell Scott pulling off Pitt Road right by Richard is pitting. You know, those are stories that, you know, the Speedway may be lost, but the story and the history isn't because of that.

I just think you and Matthew do a great job with that. I know you probably went to Ontario Motor Speedway, but Ontario was so far ahead of its time. It was like Space Age in the 70s. But I remember Benny Parsons and these guys telling me that you could sit anywhere in the stands at Ontario. And you know how PA announcer is always. Your PA sounds like, whoa, you can't hear it. Well, there it was like they had stereo speakers in front of.

of every single seat because of the sound system was phenomenal. So when they closed that track down, Daytona International Speedway, Bill France, bought the sound system. They brought all those amplifiers and those speed. They brought the two trilons. Used to be the scoring trilons at Daytona from Ontario Motor Speedway. Really? And the sound system, when Mike Joy and Ken Squire and myself would do PA at Daytona,

and they plugged that system in, holy cow, it was like surround sound. and that was what Ontario had 20 years ago. They were so far ahead of their time. Yeah, these tracks are incredible. Well, man, you got anything on your list? No, not really. I do want to say this, though. Ned Jarrett.

Yeah. Ned Jarrett. Ned raced with your grandfather, with Ralph, and they were fierce competitors. But Ned's wife, Martha and Ralph's wife, Martha, they were good buddies. They were tight. And when Ralph passed, Ned knew. I mean, everybody had respect for Ralph who's such a tenacious driver. Well, Ned wanted to help your dad.

And your dad had always been told by his grandpa, if you ever going to make it, need to get off the dirt. Because the asphalt's where it is. That's where it's going. That's where the money. That's where it's going to be. And so, but Dale needed help getting off the dirt. And so he called Ned.

Ned offered to help him. So Ned brokered a deal with Harry Gant. Harry Gann had a 64 cheval that had won everywhere. You know, King's Port Ashville, you know, Coburn, you name it. I mean, that car was unbeatable. When Harry pulled in, everybody was running for something. second. So Ned brokered a deal for your dad to buy that 64 Chavelle from Harry. And even called Harry said, don't take all the good stuff off of it. Don't take the a friend. Don't change all

that stuff. I'm buying this. We're going to help this boy buying. Truth be known, I think Ned actually fronted the money to buy the car. And they went to Hickory. And the Elven Rector, the crew chief for Harry again. All these guys came down to help this kid they never heard of, this Dale Earnhardt. And here at Hickory. And I was in the summertime. So I'm working construction and, you know, trying to make money for college. And I go down there when I get off work. and Ned had even called Gene White's tire guys come up there, and they're down there trying to work with your dad, and he'd go in the corner, and he's throttle brake,

trying to power slide this thing on asphalt. You hear the throttle, he's tearing the tires off of it, just trying to learn to drive asphalt, you know, versus where he had been on dirt. After a few hours, when Harry's there and all these guys are there, you know, he gets it. He gets it now. I think Ned paid the tire bill, too.

Dang. But the point is, a lot of things like I had. Ned Jarrett was the kind of guy that he helped me. He was like my second father, and he helped your dad. And because it was the right thing to do. Because of his respect for Ralph, he wanted to make sure this kid had a shot. And I think that's pretty cool that he managed to get, he brokered the deal. And I think, you know, I wasn't sure about the money deal.

And so I actually called Ned last night and talked to him. I said, I know you don't normally say these things, but I just want to know, did you pay for that deal for Dale Senior? And Ned told me the whole story and said, yeah, he basically fronted the money. That's amazing. That's pretty cool. I've got a lot of pictures of that car, and I've tried to match Harry in the car.

Yep. With, you know, because there's some things that you can look at the A post, the B post, C post, rocker panel, stuff like that, you know, headlights or whatever, to try to find similarities in the pictures of trying to understand, okay, there's the car with Harry in it. Right.

It's Orange 77, and here it is with that, but I haven't been able to do it. But it's also, so it's even better to hear that story because there's, you know, you know, how true that is. And Ned, you're right. You know, I think Ned, there's a couple guys in our lives that are in this sport or in this industry that sort of trend. We have star drivers. We have really incredible broadcasters.

We have, you know, people that are just really, you know, icons in the industry. But there's only, there's a few that do multiple sort of chapters or affect the sport. Yeah. And just really complex and incredible. ways. Ned was a championship driver. You know, Ned was a springboard for guys like my father, his own sons, countless others when he was promoting Hickory Motor Speedway. Ned became a broadcaster. Yeah, yeah. So incredible and so important in that role. Much like kind of Benny Parsons in a way, you know, like there's several guys that I don't think we can overstate their

their impact on the sport and how much they helped lift it. Oh, and no question. And for me to this day, to be able to stand, our great buddy Bob Jenkins, who's got a ferocious battle today, and I hope people will keep him in their prayers, because he was phenomenal as a play-by-play guy. But he was out with a back problem, and I'm actually broadcasting Talladega with Ned Jaron on one side of me

and Benny Parsons on the other. In October of 2000, when your dad came from 8,000, 18th with three laps to go. Don't win that race. And Benny says, you know, don't forget about Earnhardt or something like that. The next thing, you know, here he comes. Here he comes. And on the white flagged lap, as he's knifing his way through, literally, just dodging him.

Three wide, you know, you get pushed in on the apron of the track and going into one and do a heck of a job saving the car. If you don't save that car, he doesn't win the race. The caution comes down. Great driving by you. You did a great job. And so you save it. And I mentioned going into one. I just watched the clip last night.

And I mentioned, you know, great save by you. And because they went three or four wide and they shove you completely down. They're like a total like achiever move. You know, you're down on the apron at Talladega at speed. And you save it. And your dad comes through. And, you know, we do the Mr. Intimidator, you know, will not be denied. Kind of deal.

A car was beating and batter. And he wins a race. When the race is over, you know, we can't believe what we just saw. So we get in the elevator at Talladega. And we go down, get in the car. And I'm driving. and Benny's riding with me, we were going to the airport. And neither one of us said a word.

And I'll never forget this. I look over at Benny. And I said, Benny, I ain't believe what we just saw. And we're cruising around that Bill Francis Boulevard trying to, you know, back way out by the airport. And I said, I just don't believe what we just saw. I said, you know, that just ain't humanly possible. And Benny just looked over at me and turned his head and smiled. He said, he ain't human.

He's Earnhardt. And I just gave me chills because that was Benny's take on the whole thing, watching him come from where he came from. won that race. Yeah, that was a pretty good one. Let's talk about that apron move you made. I really wish I'd have just won that race instead. We had a long conversation about that.

I don't remember who the guest was, but... Skinner. Skinner. Oh, it was Skinner. Yeah. Did I mention in that? I was in the grandstands for that race. I was like, that was...

Really? I was in the grandstands with a buddy of mine. We drove all night, went to the track, slept in our car in the parking lot, and watch that. I wish people, look, anytime you watch

the replay of that, it's amazing. There's nothing short of amazing. I wish you could have honestly seen it from my vantage point where I was sort of low

so you can't see the whole track. My vantage point, which was coming out of turn four, he was coming up, he was a non-factor in that whole race, right?

Yeah. When he was coming through the crowd just, everyone was just glued to that. Like, who was winning, nobody even cared. Like, they were watching the three car,

slice through. Where I was, he left visibility in third or fourth place or second place, whatever it was. And when he popped back into visibility, which I assume would have been turn three, he was winning. Yeah. And so when he popped back and when they emerged from, you know, out of eyesight and he was leading, I can't think of a more chill-inducing moment in my life than that moment right there. It was amazing to see. And then the place just was going nuts. Oh, yeah. Right.

It was in like an animal house. They were just going ape. People on top of each other. Screaming and yelling. And Kenny Wallace is right behind him pushing him. Pushing him, right. Yeah. Pretty cool.

Yeah. But then Jr., you know, he had that good save. So that's what people were going crazy about it. That's right. Well, you were just getting there. You were getting there. If you don't save it, dad doesn't win. So that's a...

I don't know. I think Dad was going to win. Well, yeah. I think if Dale Jr. were to save it and won the race, Dale Jr. might not have survived after that. I used to love when Junior started winning races as he you know his career started I remember when he was winning he'd win a race and dad didn't win and it's there in the same race and I'm doing Victory Lane and we go to commercial right before we're doing

Lakeer Lane and we were sitting I can't remember where it was now we were sitting there in victory lane and I'm waiting the interview junior who just won a race here comes dad comes flying into Victor Lane he leans down to junior and he says hey congratulations great job I love you find a way home yeah yeah because he was my he was my ride home and you're going to hang out you right of course you know not for the ride man right for the moment yeah yeah yeah what a treat this is i know it's been great people are people are going to be happy thanks for having yeah it means a lot coming in here talking to you guys telling his story seeing these cars i appreciate you being uh i appreciate you being honest with us and sharing with

us some pretty intimate details of of uh you know your life and your career and i think it just uh you know speaks to your character. I talked about Ned and Benny and other people that are, that have been so important in the sport and that have played so many different roles, you're one of those guys. You know, you were so important, so beloved as a broadcaster. People, when they found out you're coming on the show today, they're like, you know, they're all, man, I wish she was still in the sport broadcast and wish you was still on pit road. And, you know, because they love you.

The drivers trusted you. You saved a lot of people's lives, but you also gave a lot of people. some great advice on things they need to be doing to take better care of themselves, and you were a great friend to so many people. Still an amazing friend today to me, as I know you are so many other people. So we just really appreciate you taking some time coming on the show, sharing that with everybody who's listening, and we're glad to see you, and you look amazing, man.

I mean, I don't even think you aged. Well, you're kind. Put on that Olympic fire suit. and jump suit. I bet you could fit in. That can of biscuits, you just popped open. That'd be me bulging out of that part.

Hey, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. This means a lot to me. It's our pleasure. Dr. Jerry Punch on the Dale Jr. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr.

For the Dale Jr. This is the Ask Junior portion of the show. With me on this segment is Leah Vaughn. She'll be teeing up your questions. Mike Davis is here. Schultz is here. But we're looking forward to it. It's been a great segment over the last several weeks

with a lot of great questions. So let's just get to it. First question coming from Patrick Kinzer. Your thoughts on the fire suit pants debate between the NASCAR boot cut and the IndyCar high cut. There was a lot on social media about this. It's a clear line where boot cut for NASCAR, whatever you call that other thing for IndyCar. I understand that there's not a lot of room down there in the pedal box of an Indy car for all that material. I get it.

I think if I was driving an Indy car, I probably would wear a suit similar to what they use. but absolutely if you're driving a stock car or you're racing at the local short track, boot cut is the way to go. Our next question coming from, Dave Sykes. I saw you repost the 60x car that was re-bodied and had a three for your dad to use on the Budweiser Showdown of Champions Tour. Do you remember those barnstorming tours and did you ever go on them? So the Budweiser Showdown of Champions, I think that's right.

Is that what he's? Yep. So Ron Bouchard, I think Matthew Dielner, if he was here, he would be able to help us a lot on exactly where and when this took place. But basically, Ron Bouchard would gather a group of cup drivers when they were racing up north and go into some of these places to race all weekend. They'd run like six or seven races in five nights or something like that. And it was only about eight to ten of the cup drivers in race cars that belonged to the racers

from that racetrack. So it'd be like Josh Berry allowing a cup regular to run his late model stock car against a bunch of other cup regulars at a show. Dad took that really seriously. A lot of the other drivers, I don't know how seriously they took it, but dad would go up there, work on the car and practice, try to help the guys get the car more comfortable or whatever you needed to do. He didn't just hop in it and race and collect his check and go home

because I'm sure they are all getting paid a couple grand to show up. But dad took real serious to get aggressive, spin you out. he wanted to win. I think the year the car was not one of the years, he went up there twice. There was the pictures of the car you'll see on the internet where the car has no paint on it. It's just the Wrangler decals over a tin body. And then there's the die cast version of the car like we have here on the table of the car actually painted with the decals. But one year he won six out of the seven races, just dominated.

I thought it was really cool. unreal that that car still exists. The chassis of that car still exists. And I think I saw in the picture of that post on social media, the roof from that actual car that dad drove in 88 is sitting on that car. The roof, I'd love to have that for my own collection. But either way, I hope they restore that car to what it used to be. Our next question coming from Ricky Ellison.

Outside of the racing world, who was your first athlete that you liked? Outside of the racing world, the first athletes I liked were going to be Washington football team players from the 80s. Darryl Green, Art Monk, I was a huge Art Monk fan. He was a receiver for Washington and I think set the single season record for the most receptions since been broken, but he beat Steve Largent for having the single season reception record one year. But if you needed a first down, whether, you know, if it was third down,

short long, it didn't matter if you needed first down, Art could catch the ball and make it happen. He just seemed like just such a great person and player. I've got a couple autographed items from Art Monk. Dale Green was one of the fastest men in the NFL. That was kind of his thing. Cornerback for Washington back then. I met a lot of the players over the years and there's a good handful of them that they were a big deal to me. Outside of racing, there wasn't much more in my life important besides how how Washington was doing and the players on the team and what was going on there. Our next question coming from Michael, we're just going to say Michael P. Because I'm not even going to try to butcher this last name.

Why didn't we see the high side use more often until Reddick at the very end of the race? It's so interesting to me because that's, you know, I think a lot of that has to do with the temp. You know, we're not racing in the middle of the summer. and I know that the final race of the year there in November isn't in the summer either, but tends to be pretty warm down there in the middle of November, humid. And maybe they just didn't get the temperature and the track temp to get some of that, you know, some of that beat on the wall earlier in the race. You know, sometimes you think it's the arrow package that dictates, you know,

whether the cars can run better on the bottom or the middle of the racetrack, you'd think with a lot of downforce that would definitely help the bottom of the racetrack. but honestly the Xfinity cars seem to look the same as the cup cars as far as where they were running on the racetrack throughout the event. And the place is getting slick and worn out. You know, running the high line and running the wall is to be fast up there 10 years ago or five years ago, you only needed to be a couple feet or a foot maybe from the wall. And you could find that blazing speed that you could produce only running that groove. Well, as the track's worn out and the grip's gone,

and people have continued to run that area more and more and more and polish that part of the racetrack, now you need to be literally an inch off the wall to find that magical three-tents that exists only right there. Right, if you're four inches off the wall, you're no better than you are in the middle of the racetrack. If you're a foot off the wall, you're not no faster than you are if you're running the bottom.

But if you can get right there on that, on that right next to it. Like only a couple guys are willing to do and only a couple guys can, like Reddick and Noah and a handful of others, that's where maybe that high line speed still exists. But eventually maybe it goes away entirely as this track continues to where and where

and the surface gets older. You'd like to think that if you could create a lot of track temp, you'd definitely see cars running a lot higher. So you create that track temp by either running a different time of the year, or during a different time of day. But it's weird to me because we really didn't see that speed from the top till the very end of the race, the coolest, you know, part of the day from Reddick right at the end.

I mean, it was lightning speed. But where was, you know, why wasn't that there at the first half of the race? It's hard for me to answer that question. It's a riddle, I guess. It's kind of a mystery as to when that top groove is going to come in and why it comes in. because it doesn't seem to make much sense. All right, one more question today coming from, Mark McCollum. Based on what you know about the next-shund cars,

do you think there will be a big change in who runs up front versus what we see now? Are there talented drivers who don't run up front now because of the gap in the equipment, or do you think nothing will change? Oh, I mean, the parody that we've seen in the season this far, this far, I mean, we're only three races in, but man, I mean, the parody,

if you're watching that Homestead race and watching Busher run up front and Newman having an awesome race. McDowell hanging in there with a great run. It resulted in a great finish. A lot of the guys that you expect that I had in my fantasy lineup running in 15th, 16th, 17th, LaGano, chasing those guys kind of struggling all day. Everybody's got to be shocked.

Everybody's got to be kind of blown away, and everybody's already trying to understand what's causing this. And so people are already starting to start. you know, pin some things on the board as to, you know, there's a parts freeze. There's been a change on how they measure the wheel wells in tech that's sort of brought the, you know, brought everybody closer together and made a lot more parity. It's incredible to watch. And if this is, if the new car is going to result in more parity, I'm all for it. You know, you want the most competitive motorsport, former motorsport in the world where, you know, there's anybody,

in the top 25 or top 30 can win. You know, that's what you want. And that's kind of what this feels like. Now, you know, and we're seeing some of the younger guys start to have that success. I remember when I started in broadcasting, we had this young guys versus the old guys thing. And it got kind of testy. If you remember, Harvick and a bunch of the guys were like, hey, you know, they're not good until they're starting, you know, they're not winning any races, right? We're still all the, you know, all old guys are still the guys winning these races.

and the young guys had yet to really stake their claim going to Victory Lane winning races to warrant that kind of attention. Well, now they are. You know, you've got Chase Elliott winning the championship. William Byron winning this past weekend. Some of the younger guys are starting to win races, you know, and we may be seeing a bit of a shift in the sport and who do you expect to be successful. It might not be the same names that we've been accustomed to over the last.

several years. I'm not putting anybody's career in the coffin, but I'm just saying there's tons of parity. I'm blown away just watching that race this past weekend. I was blown away by the performance of some of these teams, and I'm all for it. I hope it continues. We need a successful Rouse Fenway organization. It's amazing to be able to see front row or a team like that. It's been in a sport grinding and grinding for so many years, finally start to see some real true success and great performance. It's very encouraging for owners, new owners, house those guys go out there and they run in the top 20 competitive all night for Daniel. So, you know, Daniel's making a move in his career and hoping that it's going to be a good

successful one and it seems to be going in the right direction. So pretty cool to see some of the new stuff happening. All right, y'all, great questions. Appreciate it, Leah. Thanks for everybody for supporting our podcast and supporting the Dale Jr. Download and Dirtymo Media. We'll talk to you guys next week. All right, everybody.

Last call. It's been a great show. Thanks to Dr. Jerry Punch for coming on. on. Great questions again for Asked Jr. Great open segment discussion, Mike. Thanks for being a therapist again. You're welcome. Texting the mail.

Yeah. Okay, good. Yep. Like we said during the Asked Jr. portion of the show, the Dale Jr. download on NBCSN this week is Thursday, 8 p.m. All right, don't miss it. We'll keep reminding you. Follow Dirtymo Media on all social media handles to keep up to date on when you can watch

the Dale Jr. download on NBCSN. Thursday at 8 p.m. this week. Door bumper clear, a new episode out. After Homestead. And the guys talk about Tyler Reddick running the high line. They talk about slower cars, pros and cons of teams using SMT data. Listen now. Yeah, same thing.

On all major podcast platforms, door, bumper, clear. How's their shows going, Mike? They're morons, and it's going well. I think that that's what I mean by that. That's a compliment. I would be interested to hear what they think about Tyler Redick running the high line, slower cars. I listen to it.

Pros and cons of SMT data. In all seriousness, and I, you know what, I'm going to regret saying this, but I really do enjoy more than any other place to hear their take on the race first. They actually do bring a lot of enlightenment to, in processing what you just saw. So I'll give them that.

I love the fact that they're breaking news. They're always, they don't even know it. They're gossipy little guys. They're so, yeah, yeah. They're breaking the news. They break it by whining. I mean, like, it's beautiful. All right, y'all, well, thanks for tuning in.

Thanks for supporting Adele Jr. Download and Dirtymo Media. Hope you enjoyed it. Have a great week, and we'll see you next week. This bit of bad assery was made by Madassery. Dirtymo Media. Dirty Mo!